When I Kill You
by dreams of infinities
Summary: When Natasha wakes, she is in the back of a van. A SHIELD van. And it turns out that she betrayed them, yet she doesn't remember. But what exactly has she done? Why doesn't she remember? And why is everyone trying to kill her?
1. Awakening

**A/N: I'm not really sure what this actually is...so please bear with me. I don't know if it's any good, so I'll only continue if I get a few reviews. Please give it a go!**

She came to in the back of a van. Admittedly, this was not unusual for Natasha, she'd been in hostage situations many times in the past and saw no reason to panic when the chances were she would escape in a matter of minutes anyway. No, what worried her more was her total lack of memories. What _was _the last thing she could remember? Straining her mind, she thought back. _A new mission, _Fury was telling her and Clint. _She got off the plane. She spotted someone she knew..._ Nothing else. Her head hurt (and her shoulder, very much so, for that matter, but that didn't seem to have much to do with it). Had she been hit in the head? Amnesia, maybe? She shuddered. Hopefully not; she wasn't sure she could live with that.

Whoever her captors were, they had some idea of her abilities. Her wrists and ankles were cuffed to some sort of bench, and there were two guards with guns trained at her, both of whom looked familiar. In fact, she was pretty sure she could name one of them... Ivan? Something beginning with an 'I'. She rested her head against the metal wall - _what was it called in a van? _\- and grunted slightly. Her head was spinning; she felt slightly sick. Natasha glanced down at herself. She was filthy, her clothes that were most certainly not her usual SHIELD attire covered in a fine layer of grime and a dark substance which she presumed to be blood. Her own blood, judging by the hole and near unbearable pain in her left shoulder.

"It's Iain, isn't it?" she said aloud, not really directing the question at him but hardly at anyone else either. She wondered where she knew him from.

"Don't talk," the other one said harshly. She examined him. There was a slight tremor in his voice and hands: he was scared of her. Scared of what she could do. Natasha almost smiled, but thought better of it at the last moment. She didn't want another bullet wound (not that she actually thought he was going to shoot. She imagined that he'd had orders not to, because if he was going to shoot her he would have done it already).

"Who are you again?" The two exchanged glances but said nothing. Was she meant to know something?

That was when she saw it; in the slight turn of his head. The SHIELD logo. SHIELD. Why were SHIELD arresting her? Didn't they know who she was? She was Black Widow. An _Avenger_. They couldn't be locking her up, surely? Had she gone too far? Said something she shouldn't have? Natasha Romanoff was not afraid of anything, but she could feel fear bubbling in her chest, just waiting to break up to the surface in her equivalent of a scream...no. What was she thinking? Or, perhaps only slightly more importantly, what was she _doing_? She couldn't have amnesia. She wouldn't allow it. _Where the _hell_ was Clint?_

"Where's Clint?" she asked hoarsely. They stared at her. "Agent Barton," she snapped. "Hawkeye. You know who I'm-"

"I think she's playing dumb," Iain muttered. "Making out she doesn't know what's going on. Then she'll..." He slashed a finger across his own throat to point his point.

"Strike," his companion replied grimly.

"I can hear you, you know."

"_Shut up_!"

She frowned. This should not be happening. It was all wrong. Was this a nightmare? Everyone said that you couldn't feel pain in nightmares, but she could, most definitely. Maybe not real pain, but she knew that the mind could trick itself into thinking that it was feeling it. Most of the time she could trick her mind into not feeling anything, but it wasn't working. _Why wasn't it working?_ In dreams, she felt detached, almost surreal. She felt like that here - but it could just be the head injury.

"Is she OK?" Iain asked with some concern. "You think she needs a doctor?"

"Doesn't deserve one," his companion hissed angrily. "Bloody traitor. Stop being so soft, Igor."

_Traitor_? Igor? Was that his name? Yes, now she remembered. Agent B. Igor, Level Four. He'd been on the mission with her, hadn't he, before it went horribly wrong. It had gone wrong, hadn't it...? It occurred to her that she had never _not_ completed a mission. What would Fury say? What would _Clint_ say? Had he been on the mission with her? She struggled to remember. Probably. He normally was.

_And suddenly people were swarming round them, and there was a gun pressed into her temple, and his, and everyone else's, and the pistol was forced out of her hands._

_ "Tasha, what's going on?" he shouted as they pulled her away from the others._

_ "I don't know," she said, wide-eyed as she stumbled back, but in his eyes she could see definite disbelief. Why didn't he believe her? They snapped handcuffs onto his wrists but they weren't doing the same to her. They weren't restraining her at all, in fact. She turned around. "What's going on?" she demanded angrily, in Russian._

_ Someone smiled. "Welcome back, Natalia."_

She blinked at the sudden memory. What the _hell_? They knew who she was. Her real name. She had stopped being Natalia Romanova a long time ago...she wasn't Natalia any more. Natasha. She was _Natasha_.

...Wasn't she?

The van shuddered to a halt. They were stopping. Time for some answers? She certainly hoped so. Igor's companion, whatever his name was (she silently christened him Moron), released her ankles. They were numb, but she could stand. "Up, bi-"

"Don't call her that," Ia- _Igor_ interrupted. "Don't make yourself as bad as she is. She doesn't seem to...know. Anything."

She brought up her leg and kicked Moron, hard, sending him sprawling across the floor. He groaned. She turned to Igor. "Sorry," she said. "You're a good guy. But I do know a couple of things." She brought her cuffed hands up into his face.

Natasha taught herself when she was five to not feel regret. She kicked the door open. To her surprise, there was nobody there. That couldn't be right. She snapped her head to the side, hearing a light footstep-

-and someone grabbed her from behind. All training forgotten, she fought like a wildcat, and struggled to get free.

"Agent Romanoff! Stand _down_! For goodness' sake, why do you have to make everything so _hard_?!"

"Barton? Want to tell me what the hell's going on?" He pinned her against him, and though she was strong her slight frame betrayed her.

He nearly dropped her. "I'm sorry? Shouldn't it be the other way round?"

She twisted round in his arms, and this time he did drop her. "What?"

"Don't run. Move four steps and you'll have twenty-seven bullets lodged in your brain."

She didn't try, even though she knew he was lying. He could call in backup, but that would take perhaps half a minute, in which time she would be gone. But she had to _know_.

"Clint, what did I do?"

He looked at her closely. "I used to think I knew when you were lying," he said carefully, "I used to think I knew _you_. Seems I was wrong."

She didn't bother to duck the fist that came flying out of nowhere at her face. It would let her sleep. Darkness was good. Darkness was peaceful. Darkness was less confusing.


	2. Pain and Betrayal

**A/N: Well, I had a few reviews, so I thought I'd add another chapter... Please, please continue to let me know what you think!**

"Wake up. _Now_." Hands were on her shoulders, roughly shaking her out of the pleasant blankness that came with sleep. Why would no-one _ever_ let her sleep? Her eyes snapped open, to bright, painful light, and a searing pain in her shoulder (that, as a matter of fact, had just been shoved). _She'd been shot._ And a sharp ache in her head.

"Ow," she murmured - if she were not Natasha Romanoff then that surely that would have been a whimper - as everything went blurred. "Don't...touch...that. Ow."

He swore suddenly. "You were hit? Why didn't you _say_ something?"

"Well," she said, closing her eyes again, "you didn't exactly give me much of a chance. I didn't think it was important." She realised as she said this that perhaps it may have been _slightly_ important.

He swore again, this time in German. She didn't know he spoke German. But then, he had once told her that he occasionally looked up the same word in the dictionary in as many languages as he could think of, and although he had never _directly_ mentioned the words he used, she could very well guess. "Nat - _Romanoff_ \- you've been bleeding out _in the back of a van _and that isn't important? How long?" She shook her head. "_How long_?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "Barton, I don't remember... I don't remember anything. At all."

He seemed to be ignoring her, removing her jacket, ripping her shirt away so he could get a better look at the wound. She pretended not to - both of them pretended not to - hear his sharp intake of breath as he took in the sight.

"That bad, huh?"

"Stop _lying_," he said through gritted teeth. "We've uncovered your secret, OK? You can drop the act. Just..." - he growled in frustration as she tried to move and get a better look at him - "stay still."

He slammed her back against the bench and she hissed in pain. He opened his mouth as if to apologise but closed it again. Natasha braced herself. Then she looked.

Her mouth went dry. It was bad. The wound only seemed to hurt more as she gaped at it, dumbfounded. Her normally pale skin was dark, coated with some sort of grime. Blood was everywhere - literally. The wound looked like it was infected; red, inflamed skin surrounded what Natasha could only describe as a _hole_. A huge, gaping hole, that still seemed to ooze blood. It couldn't still be bleeding, surely? How was that even possible?

"You need a doctor," he said.

"You're telling me. At least let me shower."

He sighed. She had never seen Clint sigh before. "Come on."

He took her by the good arm and dragged her out into what looked a lot like one of Fury's secret bases. "Why- why didn't you bring me in?"

He shoved her into the women's toilets, but she held the door open, clearly expecting an answer. "I want to hear what you have to say," he spat, "but it looks like there's nothing. As usual."

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked, but he was already gone. Natasha shrugged. She needed a shower. "Find clothes," she shouted. She figured he would at least do that for her. Then she slipped behind the curtain.

* * *

She spent a long time under the scalding hot water, though it was agonising to her shoulder. In the end, she gave up on using that arm altogether, instead opting to let the filth run off her and then rub in soap with her right hand.

The curtain shot open, and with a muffled yelp she jumped to grab a towel to cover herself up. "What the _hell_?" she shouted at a wide-eyed looking Clint. "_Barton_!"

"You weren't answering me!" he protested lamely.

"_I'm_ _in_ _the_ _shower_."

"Well, excuse me for thinking you'd passed out from blood loss or something."

"Barton?" she said, dangerously quietly - was that a twinge of hurt in his eyes that she'd stopped calling him by his first name? - "_Get_ _out_."

The curtain slid shut and she breathed a sigh of relief. Put off, she started to dry herself and then went looking for something to wear.

As it turned out, Clint had found clothes, to his credit; she would have thought that he wouldn't want to set foot in here again. Too worried he'd find her naked again. She frowned. She wasn't that weak. She wouldn't have passed out in the shower anyway, she reasoned. The shock from the water or something. And how on Earth was she meant to hear him shouting from outside the bathroom while she was in there?

"Done yet?" he called.

"No," she yelled, pulling on a pair of jeans.

When she was done, she emerged from the room and he glanced at her in surprise. "You look...better." She smirked, not entirely sure what he meant, but glad he thought so. "But you're pale. Really pale."

She put a hand to her forehead in a mock swoon, leaning over backwards, and he leapt forwards as if to catch her, before realising that she was faking it. "Are we going, then?"

He nodded briefly, indicating that she should hold out her wrists. With a sigh she did so, and the handcuffs returned. "Get in," he said gruffly.

She got in. "Please just tell me what I did," she asked quietly, looking straight into his eyes. He backhanded her across the face so sharply that she didn't have time to duck. Natasha could feel blood trickling down her face, and her cheekbone was starting to swell, but she didn't break eye contact. He looked right back, unconcerned. "Barton. _Clint_."

"You want to know?" he hissed, with more than a little poison evident in his tone. "I'll spell it out to you, then. You turned on us. You shot most of the people on our team, including me; you killed a lot of good people: friends of SHIELD, innocent civilians, several agents; you've betrayed us all the the Red Room, whatever the hell that is; you've revealed yourself to us all, including the fact that you've been _lying to us the whole time_; you've-"

"Stop," she said. "Stop. I didn't- I couldn't have done that."

He shook his head and got out of the van, slamming the door behind him. Moments later, the engine coughed and spluttered and they started to move. _So much for getting me a doctor, _she thought grimly.

She couldn't. Why would she have done that? Surely she would have some memory, _something_ to suggest to her that she was still working for her enemy...no. No. The Red Room were involved. That could hardly be good. Nothing good ever happened with them. Including, she thought drily, herself. She had _not_ betrayed SHIELD. Not to...not to them.

_I am loyal to SHIELD. I am loyal to SHIELD._

She was in danger. Clint was in danger. Hell, if the Red Room were onto them, the whole of SHIELD was in danger. A small voice nagged at the back of her mind. _What are you going to do about it?_

Her shoulder started to throb. It occurred to her that she had not bandaged it or applied a dressing. Natasha wondered if she would regret that later on. Should she call Clint? No. She wasn't weak. She could wait.

She shifted to a slightly more comfortable position, ignoring the white hot pain that shot through her arm. She'd taken plenty of bullets before.

A dark spot appeared on her top. She pretended it hadn't, concentrating instead on her head. It was aching dully, but she didn't think she was concussed. That was good.

_Who was she kidding?_ This was _bad_.


	3. Nightmares

**A/N: OK, so some sections of this chapter are from Clint's POV, which is a bit different to what I've been doing so far. I will let you know who's perspective the story is from, though. Please let me know if it sounds all right! NOTE: IF YOU HUNT VERY CAREFULLY WITH A MAGNIFYING GLASS, YOU MAY FIND THAT THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS TRACES OF CLINTASHA. IF YOU DONT WANT THIS, PLEASE LET ME KNOW AND I WON'T PUT ANYTHING ELSE IN.**

(Clint P.O.V)

He pulled the van over beside the road for the night, because he had started to swerve off the road, he was so tired. He grabbed the flask of coffee and drained it in one gulp, wincing at the cheap, bitter taste. Clint settled down before sighing, getting out of the car and walking around to the back door. He supposed he should check on Romanoff before sleeping.

She was lying on the floor of the van - he realised that he had forgotten to cuff her ankles - sleeping. He was almost surprised. It seemed like such an ordinary, simple thing to do; he would not imagine the Black Widow would do something so...so... He never thought she would sleep. She was pale, very pale, from the blood loss or just nature he could not tell. He moved closer of his own accord, taken aback by her swollen black eye.

He noticed a growing spot of blood staining her jacket. Hadn't she bandaged it up? _Had there even been bandages in there?_ He swore. Why hadn't he checked? He considered removing her top to take another look at the wound, but winced when he imagined her waking while he was doing it. Clint would have a lot worse than a black eye.

She was beautiful while she was asleep. He felt nothing for her, of course, but she was very beautiful. The sleep softened the harsh lines and angles of her face; she seemed more vulnerable somehow. He wondered why she always had to be so _damn fearless_, always fighting, refusing to give in...somehow, he could not bring himself to feel surprised that she had betrayed them. She gasped slightly but did not wake up. Was she having a nightmare? Would she tell him if she was? He remembered when once she had woken up screaming, inconsolable, and he had tried to hold onto her, calm her down, but she would not stop. She shoved him away forcefully, ripped sheets off the beds, overturned tables before realising that she was awake and it was all over and not real. Even then she hadn't let him come close to her. He often wondered what she dreamt about.

Gently, he removed the handcuffs, instead softly attaching one of her ankles to the metal pole travelling across the floor specifically for this purpose. She stirred but did not wake. Clint shivered. It was cold in here.

He got out and closed the door quietly, locking it behind him, and got back inside the front of the van to sleep.

* * *

(Natasha P.O.V.)

_It was time, she thought, whirling round and kicking Clint in the chest so that he stumbled backwards. Any other man would have been sent flying across the room. "What the hell, Nat?" he shouted. She sent a swift blow to his head that knocked him out almost immediately. Other people started to turn around, and she ducked a fist that flew towards her out of nowhere. Guns were pulled from who-knows-where, and she grabbed her own, firing at random into the crowd that was threatening to overcome her. Some men fell down dead, or clutching bullet holes, and shots were fired from other guns._

_ She felt a searing pain in her shoulder and looked down, surprised to find that there was no blood or gaping wound. Her bullets used up, she knocked the last agent to the ground. One man was talking frantically to nobody in particular - she guessed he was a communications agent - and she kicked him in the face. Clint stirred slightly and she cocked her head to one side, watching him. He sat up._

_ "Natasha," he gasped, "what are you _doing_?"_

_ She grabbed the pistol of a nearby corpse and fired it into his leg. Somehow, she could not bring herself to kill him. _

_ "Natasha," he cried._

_ The Black Widow smiled and walked away. _

_ ..._

_ She was in a dark room, unable to see - or perhaps not bothering to try and see - the man she was talking to._

_ "You have done well, Natalia," he said smoothly. Natalia...was this a member of the Red Room? Natasha thought that this other version of herself probably knew. Other Natasha smiled proudly._

_ "Phase One is almost complete," she replied._

_ "But," he said. What now? "We need to hurry things along."_

_ "What are you suggesting?" Was that the edge of a tremor in her words?_

_ "Strike now. Take down all who you can. Take the information and run. Our contacts will be waiting for you on the border."_

_The Natasha in the dream nodded curtly._

The Natasha in the van woke up screaming.

* * *

(Clint P.O.V.)

When Clint woke up, he was clutching the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles were white. He growled in frustration. He could deal with nightmares.

Carefully he prised his shaking fingers off the wheel. Was that...a scream? He looked up suddenly, straining his ears. Natasha. He practically leapt out of the van in his haste to get to her. He noted carefully that the door was still locked. Was it her shoulder? He wrenched the door open -

And there she was, sat up and white as a sheet.

"I thought you were being _murdered_!" he hissed, furious at her and himself. She shook her head.

"Clint," she said, barely audibly. "How long ago was it? When did I shoot you?"

He looked at her in surprise. What was she playing at? Was this innocent? Did she just want to know the date, or was she tricking him? "Weeks ago," he croaked finally. This was the truth, but a vague one. His leg had healed up now; it still hurt a little, but he assumed this was the memory of it, not the wound itself.

She nodded slowly. Her breathing was ragged. Her eyes were, as far as he could see, defocused, staring randomly into space rather than at him. "What did I do after that?"

_Don't fall into her trap. _

"You ran. We caught up with you a while later. Took you out. I-"

_Damn, she was good._

"I know what you're trying to do," he said steadily.

She raised an eyebrow, but the fear had not left her eyes. "What's that?"

Clint found that he had no answer, so he slammed the door shut, ready to stalk away. She called his name.

"_What_?"

She held her hands out. "Restrain me. Tie me up. I don't care. Whatever I did, I don't want to do it again." Was she being sarcastic? He didn't know. "I'm not kidding. I don't want to hurt any friends. Not even you." She held his gaze. Clint stepped forwards and snapped his spare set of handcuffs onto her wrist. There were silent thanks in her eyes.

"Why'd you do it?" he asked quietly.

"I don't know. I don't know what happened to me, how I got here..." He must have looked sceptical, because she glared at him. "Damn it, Clint! I swear on my life! All I know is that I woke up in a bloody _van_ with weeks' worth of memories missing!"

_She's lying. Luring you in._

He sat down. "Why do I trust you?"

She smiled and looked down. "Honestly? I have no idea."

"What d'we do, then?"

She shrugged. "Not SHIELD. I don't want to hurt anyone else."

_Look at her! Making excuses not to go already!_

"Don't you turn vegetarian on me, Nat."

"I wasn't planning on it. There are some people who deserve to die." She took a deep breath. "People like me."

He softened. "Good Lord, Natasha. You don't deserve to die."

"What about all those people I've killed? Did they?"

"Most of them."

"Before SHIELD, I mean. Innocents who got in the way-"

"_Don't you dare_." His firm words cut through the air like knives. They hung in the silence.

She said nothing.

"Are you giving up with the killing, then?"

She laughed bitterly. "Oh, I'm sure I won't stop that till the day I die. I just wonder if that day is a bit closer than I originally thought."

"Didn't have your death pegged down as a suicide."

She snorted. "I'm useless to the Red Room now. I wouldn't be surprised if they started to try and get rid of me."

He blushed into the darkness.

There was a thoughtful silence.

"I'm sorry if I kill you," she said.

"_What_?"

"Just saying. I'm not planning it or anything."

"Good," he grinned, and for once it was like the old times.

Then she moved and her restraints rattled and he got up and started to drive again.

_Where are you even going?_ his subconscious nagged.

He shrugged. _Wherever I want._


	4. Thin

**A/N: So... I'm back! (Even if it was my sister who forced me to.) Not really sure about this chapter, as it's more of a filler, but give it a go!**

"Where are we even headed?" He had stopped, parked beside a narrow, dusty road, and was trying to find out where Natasha's _doctor friend guy _lived and how to get there.

She shrugged one shoulder - her good one. "I know a guy. Where are we?"

He laughed mirthlessly. "I'm not telling you _that_."

Natasha felt mildly offended but said nothing. She thought that perhaps seeing as it was _her _with two pints of blood missing he might be slightly more trusting. "Well, I can hardly tell you how to get there if I don't know where we are in the first place."

"Circle it on the map," he said bluntly.

She bit her lip to stop herself from bursting out laughing. "We have a _map_?"

He raised a hand as if to thump her playfully on the arm, but then lowered it again - probably as he remembered that this was generally seen as a friendly gesture. "We've gone off the grid. Can't use-"

"Why?"

"Because we can be tracked using electronic devices," he replied, rolling his eyes and blatantly avoiding her original question.

"No. Why've we gone off the grid?"

He looked down at the wheel. "Time to go. Circle it."

He handed her a pen, and she circled the spot where, as far as she was concerned, her _doctor friend guy_ lived. "There."

"Now get up," he said harshly, and pulled her into the back of the van again. "Can we even trust this guy?"

No," she admitted, "but he won't sell us out."

"How do you know?"

"Put it this way," she muttered, with a strange sort of half smile. "Not all that many people know he exists, and he isn't friends with all that many people."

He looked bewildered.

"Besides," she continued, "he owes me one."

She stepped into the van. "Why?"

"I don't have to tell you everything."

"I think," he said, suddenly sounding tired and weary, "that we've both had enough of secrets. And lies," he added as an afterthought.

"Then why have we gone off the grid?" She thought about trying to cross her arms, but decided against it (after all, they were handcuffed together, and it would only look ridiculous).

He sighed. "I think you're more likely to speak to me than a stupid newbie guy who thinks he's imposing. Besides, Fury will probably torture you." It was intended to be a joke, but to Natasha it sounded more like a threat.

It was not that part, however, that caught her attention. It was the first part that she was interesting.

It sounded believable, but Natasha was a natural liar and it takes a lot of observation to learn the tricks of one's trade.

* * *

(Clint P.O.V.)

"Hello," came an oily, polished voice. "Natalina?"

He raised an eyebrow at the name but said nothing as she shook her head. Somehow she had managed to persuade him to remove the handcuffs - Clint still wasn't entirely sure how. A small, plump man bounced out through the door.

"Hey, Alfredo," she said, her voice light and a tone higher than usual. "I need your help."

"You have come to repay the debt, _querido_, yes?"

"Yes," she said, forcing a smile into her voice - _how did she even do that? _"I took a bullet." She gestured to her shoulder, which, he noticed, she had not been moving for a while. "Me and my friend here, we're laying low for a while."

"But of course, _querido_! You and he..." Alfredo made some sort of gesture that Clint did not recognise nor like and she shook her head quickly. "Let me look, then." He grabbed her by the wrist and half dragged her into his room.

He followed uncertainly.

"You, Natalina, are too much trouble," he cried, shoving her down into a chair, before letting out a short cry. "My, you are thin! You must eat! Wait here."

He then proceeded to dash into a small kitchen area, from which thuds and clashes could be heard, and emerged moments later carrying a large briefcase. Clint eyed it suspiciously, but when the small man clicked it open it contained nothing more than first aid supplies.

"Show me, then," he said.

Reluctantly she slid her shirt down her shoulder slightly, to reveal the wound, and it took a lot of effort not to look away. Her arm was a _mess_. "Can you help?" she asked carefully.

He appeared not to hear; already this "doctor" was muttering away, examining her shoulder closely.

"Right," he said, grabbing a syringe and plunging it without hesitation into her skin. She hissed, and Clint moved forwards, but Natasha held up her other hand.

"It's just anaesthetic," she told him.

"How do you know?"

"Because I can't feel my arm." Alfredo started to clean up the wound, wiping away at it with a small wipe.

He swore under his breath. "Would the kind _señor_ leave the room?"

He hesitated. Could this man be trusted? Natasha thought not... "I'll sta-" he started, but she shook her head, and he left the room.

* * *

"_Señor_, you may come back in now," Alfredo called. He entered, and she was still there, looking shaken and a little bloodied but alive.

_You OK?_ he asked silently. She nodded.

"Well, then, when were you hit?" he asked, applying a dressing and wrapping a clean bandage around it. She looked at him, a question in her eyes.

She didn't even know when she'd been shot.

"A few days ago," he replied cautiously. Was she still lying? The doctor pulled her shirt down further to clean and seemed to be enjoying himself far mar than he should be. A loud beeping sound filled the kitchen and he jumped, accidentally digging his plump fingers into her collarbone. She grunted.

Ignoring her, Alfredo hurried into the kitchen, and came back out again bearing a tray of cheap-looking toast. She thanked him and accepted some.

Clint wasn't even offered a slice.

* * *

When they left, Alfredo kissed her extravagantly on both cheeks and dumped a stack of dressings and painkillers into Clint's arms, glaring at him as he did so. "Take better care of her, _señor_," he hissed.

When they reached the van, he was inexplicably angry. "Get in," he ordered harshly, opening the door with more force than was strictly necessary and snapping the cuffs back onto her wrists.

"What?" Amusement twinkled in her eyes; she thought he was jealous.

He slammed her into the side of the van, and stopped, surprised. "Bloody hell, you _are_ thin, Tasha."

"Well," she said evenly, without a hint of emotion, "you haven't exactly been fattening me up, have you?"

He stared at her, trying to think of the last time he had provided her with food. The base? Every time he'd stopped to buy coffee and a sandwich or something for himself...he _must_ have bought her something _then_.

But he hadn't, he realised with a rush of guilt.

"Crap. Why didn't you _say_ something?"

He didn't apologise. After all, she had hardly been wonderful towards him.

But there was still that niggling feeling of horror in the pit of his stomach. How could he have just _forgotten_? What was _wrong_ with him?

Clint spun around, jumped out and walked away without a word.

She didn't do anything.

* * *

(Natasha P.O.V)

She didn't know if she should be annoyed or amused. Natasha didn't necessarily _blame_ him - he'd never really done well at looking after others. _Every man for himself_ was his favourite way of playing it, despite its opposition to his team background. She's always just fended for herself, looking after him when she needed to.

But seriously? She would have thought that he would care a _little_ more for her wellbeing.

Then she remembered how much she didn't. She remembered what she had supposedly done - or the theory of it, anyway. What _had_ she done? Betrayed SHIELD to the Red Room; she knew that much. _But why?_ How had she done that unknowingly? Was she mad? Probably, she reasoned, or she wouldn't be who she was.

_Clint, don't hate me,_ she wanted to tell him.

Of course, it was too late for that.

She sank into an uneasy sleep.

* * *

When she awoke, there was a sandwich and flask of coffee waiting for her.

* * *

_ Querido - _darling

_ Señor - _sir


	5. Drown

**A/N: And a random load of sudden inspiration made me write the latest chapter early... Thank you all for your continued support, and please carry on reviewing!**

_He plunged the knife into her thigh, then her arm, then her stomach; again and again, and she was screaming - Clint too - for him to stop. Three men were holding him down, and he struggled as fiercely as he could, but to no avail... He continued, pinning her down as well so that she could not move and making small incisions everywhere. She was weakening, he knew, probably from blood loss (she'd lost more than he thought was humanly possible) and tears were forming._

_ Blood was everywhere he looked, all over the floor, and it was rising up, around his ankles, covering his knees..._

_And all the while she never stopped screaming. "Clint! Clint! _Barton_!"_

He started awake, slumped against his seat, and drew in a deep breath. It was a dream. A dream. She was fine. Why was he even dreaming about things like that?! It was wrong. Very wrong - how had his subconscious thought up something that awful?

"Oh, for crying out loud, Barton! _Come here!_"

He almost hit his head on the ceiling in his haste to leap out of the van. Was she hurt? Heart racing, he made his way round to the back-

"Clint, don't open the door. Listen. I'm going to-" She stopped abruptly.

"Tasha? You in there?". Kmuui ftuigigiyrjg

"Yeah," came a faint voice. "I...I don't feel so great."

"Are you sick? I'm coming in, OK?"

"OK." She didn't hesitate, but she sounded...wrong.

Natasha was knelt in the corner, head bowed. His gaze automatically slid downwards to check if blood had seeped through her shirt again, and was thankful to see that it had not. She was sick, then. To the stomach? Probably not. She was Russian. Maybe it was something he'd bought her? Was it his fault?

Quite suddenly, she moaned, and dropped to the hard metal floor, clutching her stomach. "Ow," she grunted. "Help - handcuffs - ah. Ow." He crouched down and removed the handcuffs. She went still.

"Natasha?" he asked softly. "Can you hear me?"

Going against everything she stood for, Clint turned her over and lifted her up, holding her up to the weak light coming through the doorway.

All he saw was a fist shooting into the side of his head before everything - her, the van, everything - spiralled into nothing.

And a flash of red hair as she darted away, leaving him alone.

* * *

He was only out for a matter of seconds, but to Clint it felt like hours. She was gone. "Crap," he murmured. _She was gone._ How long had she been playing him like this? Swearing that she didn't know what was going on, that she was innocent... He sprang up, cursing again as a sharp pain shot through his skull. She knew where to hit, that was for sure, but why not put that effort into knocking him out completely, for an hour or two.

It didn't add up. And he couldn't call in backup, because he had completely disappeared, and questions would be asked about his loyalties, and- Fury was going to be _livid_. He was going to be killed. _But first,_ he told himself firmly, _you're completing your mission. _How had she brainwashed him? How had she managed to persuade him to do all that?

Then he remembered that she was getting away, and he ran.

She was but a soft blur in the distance, heading down towards the large river (Clint had forgotten its name). He cursed himself for not bringing a bow with him; the gun he kept tucked beside his thigh was gone and though he had another in the cab, she was getting away too quickly.

_Backup,_ he though frantically. _I need backup._

The only thing that kept him going was the rage, rage so violent it pounded through his bloodstream and in his mind and everywhere. He kept running, sure he was gaining on her. Yes, he could see her. Red hair, that awful yellowish shirt he had found for her - and she was clutching his gun. He couldn't get close, then.

Why was she doing this to him?

His breathing was shallow and harsh, and his chest was tight. The air was brisk, to say the least, which only seemed to make it more painful for him. A stitch knawed at his side and he considered stopping and pausing for air, but did not.

She stopped at the river. He wondered how she was planning on crossing; he had almost been scared that he would drive the van into it when they drove by its side for a while. The road was narrow enough that it could not accommodate a pedestrian and driver of a moderately large vehicle at the same time, and the fierce waters had worn away at the roadside, leaving a fairly sharp descent. The river itself was angry, churning and deep and treacherous. Not something you could just swim across.

Clint was thankful for his superb eyesight. From here he could see her pull out the gun and take aim. Was he close enough for her to hit him? At the rate he was hurtling down the hill, yes. A shot rang out across the barren landscape, and he dived sideways. "Crap!" he shouted to nobody in particular. This was bad - why on Earth was he rolling down the hill? Sideways! He was rolling down a hill, sideways. What the hell? Another gunshot sounded. She surely should have hit him by now: Black Widow never missed a target. What was happening here?

He jumped up and broke into a sprint, having had enough time rolling on the ground to have regained most of his breath, in hot pursuit of the unmoving woman. She was stood still, simply pointing the pistol at his head.

Clint skidded to a halt. "Natasha," he said, quietly, carefully, "stop. You...you don't want to do this."

The only part of her that moved was her hair, blowing slightly in the mild breeze given by the roaring waters. She was silent, cold, calculating. She was the Russian spy - not the ex-Russian she'd led him to believe but Natalia Romanova through and through. Hell, she was Black Widow, and she was deadly, and she was going to kill him. _She was going to kill him._ Kill him...

Clint raised his hands slowly. "I'm not going to hurt you," he whispered, his words barely audible over the crashes of the river. "Kill me. I won't stop you, Natasha." His throat was dry; his tongue felt thick and heavy. "A storm's coming," he said finally.

And all of a sudden the gun fell out of her hands, and she stared at it, wide-eyed, and the kicked it into the river. And she started to fall - he ran towards her, but was not quick enough - and knelt by the riverside, retching violently.

"Tasha?" Softly, softly, he put a hand in the middle of her back. She didn't flinch away. "You OK?"

A fat drop of rain hit his face, and then another, but neither of them made any move to get up and make their way back to the van. He thought it probably was not the best time to put handcuffs on her.

"We should- we should be getting back," he said after a while, putting his hands on her shoulders and gently pulling her away from the edge.

Quite unexpectedly, she spun around and wrapped her hands around his throat, strangling him. He choked and fell down. "Nat- Natasha - you don't want to- you don't want to do this- it's raining..." - she released her grip slightly - "there's going to be a storm, Natasha. Not just literally." And he found himself repeating the word over and over again. "Storm. Storm. Sto-"

She pressed harder, and then he _really_ couldn't breathe. He let pain flash in his eyes.

And then she stopped. Let go. "I'm going to hurt people, Clint," she said hoarsely. "People are going to die."

And then she turned, and ran, and threw herself into the raging river.

Rain started to pour.

* * *

(Natasha P.O.V.)

The water was not as cold as she had feared, but it was biting nonetheless, and did its job. She was cold, very cold, and her head was clear enough for her to realise that she had to snap out of this. She had tried not to hurt him...

She had knocked him out so that he would wake up quickly. Some part of her had been fighting when she had shot at him, and she had stopped altogether at the river. She hadn't meant to try and strangle him. That had just happened. And as soon as she'd had the first opportunity to get rid of the gun she had.

Clint was going to _hate_ her.

She struggled upwards for breath, hoping she could somehow cling to the side and drag herself out. It was pouring by now. _A storm's coming,_ he had said. She recognised that from somewhere.

Natasha found herself being hurled downwards again, and she inhaled a mouthful of water. She coughed, trying to get it out, but only succeeded in, when trying to draw in another breath, drinking in a lot more. OK. This was not good. She was a strong swimmer, but the current was stronger, tugging her down deep.

She couldn't breathe.

Her body was numb from the cold.

She felt sick.

She was dying.

This wasn't a dream.

A storm was coming...

Hands around her middle. She lashed out, trying to get free, before she realised. Hands. Pulling her up to the surface. Dragging her out of the water. Everything was dark - and then light, as she broke into the open air - and then dark again, as she closed her eyes. She was tired.

There was a voice, urging her to open them again. She was lying on her side, then her back, and something was pumping hard at her chest. She could hardly feel her ribs crack and threaten to break.

Lips pressed against hers, forcing air into her lungs. Clint...was _terrible_ at kissing. Why was he kissing her? He didn't love her. Pumping again, and this time it hurt, and then the same, horrible kissing.

She started to drift.

* * *

There was one blackness, and there was another. Natasha's subconscious guessed that one was death, and that the other was unconsciousness. Which to choose?

She could end it. That would be easier, would it not? She would kill no-one else. She would be free of the rain that stained her ledger. She would be free of SHIELD, and the KGB, and the Red Room, and Clint-

Now, there was a point. Natasha's subconscious stopped listing the reasons why she should die and started listing the reasons why she shouldn't.

Clint.

The Avengers.

SHIELD.

Coulson. He wouldn't want her to follow him, right?

Fury.

That guy - Iain or Ivan or Igor or whatever the hell his name was. If she lived, it would piss him off.

The Red Room. She had to stop them.

All the girls and women devoted to the Avengers: she was something of an idol, being the only female Avenger.

Life was a somewhat interesting experience.

She'd never died before. What if it was horrible?

She'd never tried Shawarma.

They'd probably bring her back to life anyway, like it or not.

But to die. Oh, to die would be another experience entirely. It was merely a continuance of life. An adventure. Maybe a peaceful one, considering the fact that nobody would try and kill each other because everyone was dead.

And with all that in mind, Natasha's subconscious made a decision, and turned from one darkness and gravitated towards another.


	6. Can't Let Go

**And yet again, sudden inspiration strikes! What is this? Maybe I'll even finish the fic... In other news, I'm thinking of turning this into a series of stories and writing a few sequels. Do you think that's a good idea? My eternal thanks for everyone who has reviewed. Please do so again, and maybe I'll update quickly (heh...maybe)!**

(Clint P.O.V)

He hadn't even stopped to think. He had simply dived in after her. He wasn't sure how he had managed to fight the current so effectively; he knew, of course, that he was a superbly strong swimmer and that she was by no means better than him and all that, but the river had been so forceful...it shouldn't have been possible to do that. He figured it was an adrenaline rush or something.

Clint turned his attention to the more immediate matter at hand. Currently he was doing CPR, trying desperately to resuscitate her. She had closed her eyes and gone limp almost as soon as he had dragged her out of the freezing water (which, he thought, was by far colder than it had any right to be). She was barely breathing, and her pulse was so weak that his numb fingers could hardly pick it up at all.

Damn it. Why was he even doing this? He should have let her die. Hell, he wasn't sure why she'd jumped in, but someone willing to leap into rivers like that probably had some sort of death wish. Maybe she _was_ suicidal. But he couldn't deny the pleas in her eyes, the way she had looked at the water as she knelt before it - haunted. He couldn't deny that her face was full of apology and fear as she attempted to strangle him. And what he had said to her, _A storm's coming_, seemed to have been some sort of trigger to her - as soon as he'd said the words she'd snapped out of her evil-Natasha spell and into her sorry-wretch one. What had happened there? He had never heard anyone say that to her before (except that one time they had been stranded on a large mountain in the middle of Canada and a blizzard had started to blow, but he didn't see how that was relevant).

"Natasha!" he shouted. "Damn you, Natasha! Why the _hell_ are you doing this? I hate you! I _hate_ you! I hate you! You can't do it! You can't just-" - he thought he felt a tear fall, though it could merely have been this bloody rain - "you can't." He stopped. "I HATE YOU!" he roared, but didn't feel much better.

* * *

(Natasha P.O.V.)

She wasn't fully aware of what was going on, but it hurt like hell. Her rib cage ached, and water was pouring out of her mouth, and nose, burning her as though it was acid. It _felt_ like acid. Her lungs were burning, and she couldn't quite breathe properly; every time she tried to inhale she coughed and choked on the water. He had rolled her onto her side, and had his hands on her stomach, reassuring her, urging her on.

She vaguely registered the fact that it had probably been Clint who had pulled her from the bottom, and wondered why. He should be wanting her dead. Why had he...? She coughed weakly.

"Get it out," he said patiently. "Get it all out."

Water continued to spew out. How much had she swallowed? Her entire body was soaked and the pouring rain wasn't helping. She stiffened, retching the last lot out. He stroked her hair away from her face and lifted her up gently. She tried to struggle - Natasha had always had a certain hatred for being carried, ever since...

Because it made her look weak. She hated being carried because it made her look weak. "Put me down," she tried to say, but it came out as more of a muffled grunt, and she didn't have the energy to correct herself. "Clint," she mumbled half-heartedly.

"I'm here," he said, misunderstanding.

She shoved him as hard as she could, which, admittedly, was not very hard, and he dropped her. "Don't carry me," she said.

He laughed harshly. "Right," he replied, scooping her back up and holding her tighter. She groaned. _Seriously? He was going to do this now?_ Her eyelids started to flutter. _No._ "Don't fall asleep," he said, glancing down at her. She wasn't going to. She _wouldn't_.

They fluttered again, of their own accord. What? She had control. She could do this.

He put her down, in the cab, and turned the heating on fully. Warm air started blasting towards her. He closed the door, and got in the other side. "Take off your wet clothes," he ordered.

"You're not getting me undressed that easily," she commented drily. He scowled at her, not taking the joke.

"Have it your way, then," he said.

* * *

He parked at a gas station to fill up and pick up some food or something. She didn't really care; it was taking up most of her remaining energy to stay awake, and even then she simply stared into space. A couple of times she had blinked only to find that Clint was waving a dripping hand in front of her eyes. She felt nothing - everything inside was empty, as though it had all been washed out by the river, and there was nothing left...

She jumped. Clint had dropped a few bags onto her lap. "Get changed," he told her gruffly. Since he had got her back to the van, he had suddenly turned cold, devoid of emotion, as though he didn't care about her at all.

As though he hadn't just dived into a fast, churning river to save her life.

She got out wordlessly and walked round through the pouring rain to the back of the van - into the compartment that she had now nicknamed her "home". After all, she seemed to be spending most of her time there. When he closed the doors (and locked them too, she noted without surprise) she set about methodically stripping off her soaked clothes and, upon finding a towel in the shopping bag, drying herself. Then she put on the clothes, wincing slightly at the bright red of the fleece, which clashed horribly with her hair.

She didn't feel much warmer, even as she she pulled out the blankets also supplied - how much had he spent? - and wrapped them around herself. At one point he brought her some coffee, and while she was sipping at it the vehicle lurched into motion again. Feeling a little sick, Natasha put the coffee down and rested her head against the wall.

_I will not fall asleep, _she told herself, and forced her eyes to stay open.

* * *

(Clint P.O.V.)

He was worried about her.

She seemed...gone, somehow. Dead inside, almost. Something had changed inside her. Her eyes were dull and lifeless. She held herself loosely, her head hanging, her shoulders slumped. Her hair, a vibrant red, didn't seem so bright.

He parked the van outside a motel, and went inside to check in. Clint wondered if Natasha was awake. He hoped so. He didn't want to carry her in, and he didn't particularly want to take her to the hospital with hypothermia either. Hell, he didn't want to take her anywhere. He wanted to abandon her in the middle of nowhere, leave her to die, but-

But had couldn't let go. He couldn't let go of the Natasha he had known, the Natasha who would lay down her life for him. He would lay down his life for her. They were partners, with an unbreakable bond - or so he had thought. He hated to think of how she had gone behind his back, told him lies...

But had she? She had seemed so _confused_. She had seemed so much like she had _no idea_ of what was going on. He couldn't let her go. He couldn't trust her, but he couldn't _not_ trust her, because- because-

Because she was still _Natasha_. His Tasha. His Nat. And he couldn't leave that behind, no matter how hard he tried. He was Hawkeye, loyal Hawkeye, and Hawkeye didn't give up on friends.

Even when they wanted to kill him, and he wanted to kill them.

* * *

(Natasha P.O.V.)

When they got into the room, her gaze swept around the room. A door, presumably leading into the bathroom. A small desk, a chair. A rack to put bags. A bed.

"One bed," she said. "Huh."

He glared at her.

"OK," she started, "I'll take the floor."

He grunted. "No. We need to keep warm."

A smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. She raised an eyebrow. "That keen, Barton?"

He slapped her before he was fully aware of what he was doing. Thankfully, it was light, and to the collarbone. She would be fine.

She looked up at him, frowning, and he saw that she had curled her body into a fighter's stance. "Whoa. I'm not going to do anything-"

"Untoward, yeah. Sure."

He picked her up and dumped her on the bed. Her head struck the grim beige wall, but she didn't seem to mind all that much. "Fine," she muttered, tracing a line down the middle of the bed. "Cross this line and your sexual organs will find themselves outside in the pouring rain. _Detached_ from your body."

He shuddered. "Point taken. I'm going to freshen up."

He moved into the bathroom, but she was asleep before she noticed him emerging.

She didn't plan on waking up any time soon, either.


	7. Bed

**A/N: OK. Here we go. This is kind of another filler chapter, with a terrible cliffie, so please don't hate me too much. Also, the next chapter I am planning to be shorter and as a flashback chapter, so that won't really answer your questions... I will be making this into a series, but I still can't think of a name for it. Also, this chapter contains mild Clintasha. That's about it, so please review!**

(Natasha P.O.V.)

It was him, lightly thumping his hand against her stomach, that woke her up.

She sat up immediately, an irritable _What?_ already on her lips, but, glancing over, she noticed three things. First was that he was still asleep. Second, sweat shone on his brow, and third, he kept spamming, as though he was in pain. She guessed he was having a nightmare. She wondered what it was about, but deduced that it was probably about a seven on the Barton scale (a scale they had created to explain how bad his nightmares were - one being not terrible, perhaps Vietnam, and ten being as bad as they could get. Mostly these were about his brother and life before SHIELD, though Natasha knew very little about this. It was her personal belief that everyone was entitled to secrets, even if they made them wake up screaming in the middle of the night). She thought back to their worse missions. Perhaps he dreamt of Beijing; that had been a hard one.

Taking action - almost without consideraction of what he would do to her when he woke - she settled into the familiar routine of straddling herself atop his thighs to prevent him from jumping up and pinning down his arms (she had learned to do this the hard way, resulting in a minor black eye). She did it without thinking. It was only natural to her.

She slapped him and he flinched awake, gasping in air and blinking several times to clear his vision. "Natasha," he whispered, trembling, "Natasha. Natasha."

"I'm here," she said quietly. Why the sudden change in attitude?

His gaze rested on where she was sat and slowly, slowly traveled up to look her in the eye. "What," he hissed, "the _hell_."

"You were having a nightmare," she informed him, by way of explanation, and flopped back onto her side of the bed. "You hit me."

"I-" He seemed to be having trouble spitting the words out.

"It's three in the morning," she said tiredly. "Let me sleep."

"We should get goi-"

"_No_. I'm going to sleep," she snapped, and that, Natasha thought, was the end of that.

* * *

(Clint P.O.V.)

Beijing had been a bad one.

It had all been going smoothly - too smoothly. They had gathered all the intelligence required, and some more besides. Everyone they wanted to be dead was dead, without a hitch, and everyone who was useful and allied with them was alive. They'd arrested a bunch of illegal weapons dealers and uncovered a brutal human trafficking organisation in the middle of it. He should have known there would be a complication.

They had both had temporary molar implants; these could easily be removed with a mirror and a pair of tweezers. They allowed the two to converse with Morse Code - if he simply bit down he could creat a click without any implication to the outside world that he had done anything. The sound was then transmitted to Natasha's chip, which pulsed briefly with an accompanying click to inform her of what he was saying. He recieved her transmission while on a rooftop as she seduced one last man into telling her the one last piece of intelligence.

...-...

...-...

SOS.

"Natasha?" he muttered. "You OK?" Nothing. "Nat? Do you copy?"

Still, his earpiece was silent.

He called Coulson. "Black Widow's offline," he said. "Are you getting a signal?"

"No," Coulson replied. "Go find her. It's important that we get this intel."

He hung up. "Jeez, Tash, say something."

He heard a grunt crackle through his earpiece. Where was she?

He broke into a sprint, firing an arrow at a random thug without even looking. What the hell was Natasha playing at? Was she...? Clint swallowed thickly, which was hard when running. He felt oddly possessive over the young red-haired assassin - it was not love, nor lust, but something inexplicable; he had recruited her, and he felt responsible for her welfare.

Besides, he reasoned, nobody would want their partner to be sleeping with the enemy. It would just be _wrong_, and he would be damned if he was going to let her do it. They had only been working together for five months. What if she tried to betray him?

He burst into the office, fully expecting them to be doing...whatever she did when she went into people's offices and came out with everything she needed. But the room was empty. "Natasha?" he called softly. "Where are you?"

A security guard, tall and gangly and no more than twenty-four, kicked the still swinging door open. There was a tremor in his hand, and it showed in the gun he was pointing at Clint's neck. "M-move, and I'll shoot," he stuttered, clearly terrified.

"You're not going to shoot me," he said calmly, moving forwards and twisting the gun out of the poor guy's hand. He couldn't help but feel a twinge of regret. He could only be caught up on this by chance. "Where did Cheng take her?"

"W-what? I don't...I don't know what you mean..." Clint twisted his arm, hard, but not enough to break it. He didn't want that on his conscience, not today. "P-please!"

"Tell me," he said.

"He-he took her downstairs. She wasn't moving; uncon- unconscious I think. Said he was going to try and get..." The youth turned white. "He's going to kill me."

"Get what?" Clint persisted, as he fainted. "Crap."

Downstairs. The basement? Didn't all torture happen in dark basements? He started to run. Romanoff was pretty strong - he guessed she would hold out for a while. There was a muffled curse down the line. "Romanoff! Do you copy?"

"Not exactly," she said. "I'm in a bit of a tight spot. Help me ou- crap!"

"Natasha?"

He swore violently in every language he could think of, and then set off down the stairs.

To cut a long story short, he found her. Cheng was beating her with some sort of _whip_; it looked inhumane to him. She appeared to have lost consciousness (it had been a long trek down the stairs to the basement, a dim room used to supply all sorts of obscurities, and back up again), and yet Cheng continued to hurt her. He let out a shout. "What the hell are you doing?"

He had forgotten to speak in Chinese, but Cheng understood him anyway, and gave him a vicious smile. "I was hoping you would come," he said, and the door clanged shut.

* * *

In the end, he killed Cheng, picked the lock, and half carried, half dragged her to safety. She wasn't seriously harmed, and the wounds didn't even scar. It had been the sedative that had knocked her out. Cheng was beating her to get to Clint, because, it seemed, he had an ancient grudge against him.

But none of that mattered.

No, what mattered to him was the image that haunted him.

Bloody tears in her clothing. A figure standing over her, relentlessly whipping her, _laughing_, and it was his fault.

Later on she told him that she had close to Cheng and he had stuck a needle into her neck. _An amateur's mistake,_ she had laughed. In fact, she didn't even seem remotely fazed.

He woke up to find her face staring into his, genuine concern evident in her eyes. And then he remembered, and snapped at her, and she rolled off him, unconcerned. He wondered if he had cried out.

"Natasha," he murmured.

"Mm."

"Beijing," he said, much to his own surprise. He shouldn't be sharing this with her, but it somehow felt...right. Like she could help.

He looked at her. Her chest rose and fell evenly as she breathed. Her short red hair framed her face.

Clint got up.

* * *

After showering, he felt a little better. He jogged out to the van to get the food he had bought the night before, and started to prepare it so they could eat quickly. She woke up as he was doing this.

"What are you doing?" she groaned.

He tossed her the sandwich. "Breakfast."

Natasha groaned again. "Not hungry." Her stomach rumbled loudly. "Fine," she admitted. "Hungry. But I haven't slept this well in ages."

He felt a little bad. She _had_ been in the back of a van for...how long? _Which_, he thought grimly, _only proves my point._ But even he had felt worryingly comfortable in that bed - he should have been more alert. Clint searched his archive for a comeback, and in the end selected, "Eat."

She ate, and reluctantly dragged herself out of the bed. "It's freezing," she said miserably, plonking herself back down and curling up again beneath the covers. Clint immediately moved over to check her temperature, but she was fine, so he put his arms round her middle and pulled.

She flopped onto the floor with all the grace of a beached whale and then, furious, she launched herself on top of him with a flurry of harmless punches. Later on, he would tell himself that he let himself fall backwards onto the bed.

And yet suddenly, both of them laughing, they found themselves face-to-face, centimetres between them. Electricity crackled through the air.

He wanted to kiss her.

No, he didn't.

But he did.

She stopped, staring at him. A strand of hair fell across her face but she didn't bother to brush it away.

She was beautiful, he found himself thinking, and then she leapt away from him as though she had been electrocuted, and all was normal again, and he shook himself for being such an idiot.

* * *

(Natasha P.O.V.)

"I'm going to get some air," she told him, because apparently he trusted her now - enough even to let her sit in the front next to him. He nodded his permission.

She jumped out and leant against the van. Hearing a movement, her head snapped around, but her eyes only met darkness. Stars shone overhead.

_She was being watched._

The thought popped into her head quite suddenly. Natasha had always had an uncanny ability to be able to tell when she was being watched, and she was. She drew the gun she had hidden in her waistband (you could never be too careful, and Clint needed not know) and flicked the safety catch. She turned again.

"Hello, Yelena," she said calmly.

"Hello, Natalia," said Yelena, stepping out of the shadows.


	8. The Mission (Flashback)

**A/N: Soooo... I guess you guys didn't like that cliffhanger much, so I wrote this chapter quite quickly. It's actually not shorter than the rest of them, you'll be pleased to hear. Next chapter should hopefully be up in a few days. I plan on blitzing this fic and getting it finished, so I can focus on some other stories and then come back to the sequel. Thanks to everyone who reviewed!**

(Natasha P.O.V.)

"Come in."

Natasha had always hated Fury's office; it had seemed to her when she first arrived at SHIELD like a room one visited only to be judged, or prosecuted, or killed. She could still remember when Clint had brought her in here (escorted by four armed guards), telling her that she might find him a little cold to start with but that soon she'd be joining him on missions and they would be partners. Admittedly, she had been sceptical at first - with a job like hers, she always had to be on high alert and she had not fully banished the possibility that they had only offered her a position so that they could get her under control and then kill her.

And she hadn't wanted to be his partner. There _was_ a reason she was called Black Widow.

But this was three years on, and though the first year had been rocky (filled with training, court trials, tests and brutal treatment from everyone who knew her true identity), she was a respected, high-level agent with a fantastic partner, and having a partner watching your back was far better than she'd known. Her and Clint had formed an almost unbreakable bond, and they stayed stubbornly by each other's sides. It wasn't anything untoward, of course, but they were firm friends and she planned on keeping it that way.

Smiling, Natasha thought back to the "Glasgow Incident", a mission for which she had spent painstaking weeks teaching Clint how to do a Scottish accent, only to find that when they reached the city he had already accidentally slipped back into his American and let the drug dealing network know that SHIELD was onto them. They had ended up being in a small space with twenty trained mercenaries and, much to the surprise of everyone who had hacked into the security camera and watched them, made it out relatively unscathed (save for a split lip and sprained wrist or two).

"Agent Romanoff." Fury sounded impatient.

"Sir?" Her head snapped up, with it coming reality. Had she been daydreaming?

"I understand this mission may hold emotional complexities for you in particular. We - the council and I - think it would be better if you stayed behind for this one." _What?_

"I'm afraid I don't quite follow," she said carefully.

"We're looking into the KGB," - she stiffened, though not noticeably - "and possibly your old employers, the Red Room." Outside, she stared straight ahead, showing no emotion, but on the inside, she was curled up, trying to hide...perhaps if they couldn't find her, they would leave her alone. Belatedly, she realised what a childish thought this was.

"You up for it, Nat?" Clint was looking at her closely, seeming concerned. She had told him very little about her life as a KGB assassin, and, knowing that this was a sensitive area, Clint had never pushed her to find out more. She knew the council were itching to have her interrogated, even now. But, truth be told, she had done her very best to block it completely from her memory.

"We'll take them down?" she asked, her voice betraying nothing as her inner self started to scream.

"Possibly. I'm afraid I have to ask you, Agent Romanoff, to tell us at least something about this organisation's techniques."

A sharp intake of breath, from her. A scream was at her throat, pushing and trying to tear itself out, but she clamped her mouth shut and nodded briskly instead. Oh, the council members were going to have a field day. She wouldn't even be particularly surprised if they flew over to torture her themselves.

"Natasha?" Clint said softly, touching her arm. "You still with us?" She blinked, finding that she had been staring into space again.

"They're good," she said. "Fast and precise. Anything you think will trick them, they'll have anticipated, and they'll have a plan. And a backup plan. Every one of their agents is highly trained and near impossible to beat. The easiest way to get rid of them is to put a bullet through their brain when they're not looking, which is difficult because they'll spot you from a mile away. They don't do prisoners, unless they want information, in which case they will be tortured in the most painful and inhumane ways possible until they get what they need."

Barton and Fury stared at her.

"The best plan of attack is to not have a plan. If you do, then will know about it. Attack them and make it up as you go along. And if any one agent is captured, we're in trouble, because the Red Room is on to us and they won't stop until they take is down. If you see an agent captured, the kindest and safest thing to do would be to kill them before they spill all our secrets."

"You make it sound like they're impossible to infiltrate," Fury said.

"That's because they are. They're bad people to be tangled up with." Fury glared, but Clint was shaking slightly. He looked slightly pale; she realised that this was more than she had ever revealed to him.

She stood, her chair scraping across the smooth, polished floor. "That's all I can tell you. I'm sorry."

Then she walked out.

* * *

"Agent Igor," the young man informed her, shaking her hand firmly. "I'll be running backup."

"Hey," she said, not really in any mood to care.

"So," he began, leaning closer, "I was wondering if you could...you know, give me a couple of tips on the KGB."

She choked, shoving him away from her and stumbling into the tiny toilet cubicle. Resting her head against the wall, she took a few deep breaths, and then Clint squeezed in beside her. "Room for another?" he asked cheerfully. She breathed in again. Then out. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

"I don't know if I can do this," she admitted, biting her lip.

She felt arms around her, warm, strong, muscular arms, that held her tight and didn't let her go. She rested her head against his shoulder, revelling in his _surety_, his _reality_. "Hey," he murmured, "it's going to be OK."

Top ten common lies, she though. "What if Yelena's there, or Petrovitch? I deserted... Crap. They're going to kill me. Or torture me, try to brainwash me again, or _something_..."

Black Widow never cried, but she was on a plane that was heading to her past and she was in the arms of her best friend, who was blatantly lying to her, and she kept remembering everything she didn't want to remember and her entire messed up life was becoming even more messed up.

Black Widow never cried, but sometimes she came close.

* * *

She stepped off the plane. Immediately she started scanning the faces for anyone she recognised - and saw someone. _Who was it?_ She didn't know her, Natasha was sure, but her face was so familiar...

She stopped.

"_Bohze moy,_" she whispered, reaching for her gun.

"Tasha?"

"Clint - Clint. It's- I think it's Yelena."

He put a hand on her shoulder. "Where?" She heard an all-to-familiar click; his gun. "Small, dark haired?"

She shook her head. "No, she's blon-"

Then there were guns everywhere.

* * *

And suddenly people were swarming round them, and there was a gun pressed into her temple, and his, and everyone else's, and the pistol was forced out of her hands.

"Tasha, what's going on?" he shouted as they pulled her away from the others.

"I don't know," she said, wide-eyed as she stumbled back, but in his eyes she could see definite disbelief. Why didn't he believe her? They snapped handcuffs onto his wrists but they weren't doing the same to her. They weren't restraining her at all, in fact. She turned around. "What's going on?" she demanded angrily, in Russian.

Someone smiled. "Welcome back, Natalia."

Her heart skipped a beat. They thought...they thought she was allied with them. Did they know she had deserted? Perhaps they thought she was undercover?

Yelena stepped forwards, her mouth twisted into a triumphant grin.

She understood then. Everything was right. Everything was as it should be.

"Hello, Yelena," said Natalia.

"Hello, Natalia," said Yelena.


	9. Did You Miss Me?

**A/N: Yay! The evil witch has returned! Quite a bit of weirdness in this chapter, but we should see some action in the next one. Please review!**

The Red Room was not at all what Clint had expected it to be.

He had expected darkness, dim, grimy stone walls. Torture dungeons, bloodstained floors, dripping ceilings. At least something _red_. This was completely sterile; white wherever he looked, and impossibly bright lights, it seemed - though he guessed this was just the light reflecting off the wall, floor and ceiling. He couldn't even find the door; perhaps he was facing away from it, seeing as he couldn't even move an inch, he was so heavily restrained against his steel chair.

"Natasha," he tried, for the seventeenth time. "Say something. Please." She stared straight ahead, unmoving, mute. Her gaze was not lowered, nor frantically searching for an escape route like the Natasha he knew. There was nothing in her eyes, either, no desperation, no submission, not even the cold, emotionless mask she hid behind most of the time. Her eyes were _dead_. "A storm's coming," he said hopefully, and she blinked, and her fingers twitched, but then...nothing, again.

Part of the wall spun open - _there's the door, _Clint thought grimly - and a short, stout man walked in. Still, she showed no reaction, not even when he cupped her chin in his fingers and tilted her face up to look into his. "Natalia," he said in an oddly husky, throaty voice. "Welcome back. I was wondering when you would arrive."

"Natasha!" Clint urged. "Say something! Fight back!"

"My Natalia knows when not to speak," the man said softly, staring at Natasha as though he was fascinated by her and sending shivers down Clint's spine. _My Natalia._ She wasn't _his_. She wasn't anyone's but her own. "Don't you, my dear?"

He pulled his hand away and she nodded slowly. _Of her own free will._ No. This wasn't her. Neither was the woman at the river, or the one who shot him. Neither was the one who betrayed him, the one who had gone on the run and evaded him for three weeks. _That_ was this man, this man who had twisted her reality and made her into a _monster_. A _weapon_. "Crap," he whispered. "What the hell did you do to her?"

The man grinned. "I reminded her of who she really is."

"_Tell_ me," he said through gritted teeth, voice low and menacing.

He looked delighted, as though this was the highlight of his day - which, Clint reminded himself, it probably was. "Hawkeye," he chuckled, "Hawkeye. Loyal to the last breath, or so I've heard. Not at all like my beautiful child here." The way he said it made Clint certain that this was _not_ her father, although the phrasing suggested otherwise. Besides, Natasha herself had once informed him that she had been orphaned at the age of four. "Do you want an explanation? I suppose so." He tensed, waiting for the secret - but the man merely began cutting her straps. "She will tell you in her own time, I suppose. But come, Natalia! We have much to do!"

She stood slowly, like she was a clockwork figurine. Clint swallowed. "What are you going to do to her?" he asked, his mouth dry.

"They say that pain helps people remember," he replied smoothly. "We find, however, that with a little assistance, pain is very good at making people forget."

He stiffened. _Crap. Crap crap crap._ They were going to- they were going to brainwash her again. _Erase_ her. Take away her life, _everything_ that he and the Avengers and Coulson and Fury had made her into. They were going to make her into a weapon again, just as she had been before he found her and brought her in and made her into an agent of SHIELD, and somehow he doubted that he would be able to change her again.

"No."

The man laughed. "Yes, I'm afraid."

"You can't just _do_ that! She's a real person, not some- some tool! Crap, Natasha, just...do something. Fight back. Anything." She didn't react at all; it was as though she hadn't heard him. "A storm's coming, Nat."

She stopped. He repeated it.

And suddenly her hand jerked towards the pistol at the man's belt, and grabbed it, pulling it upwards -

But, as time slowed down, he blurred towards her and pulled the gun from her grasp, and hooked the other arm around her throat in a tight chokehold. She started to struggle - Clint could see that her windpipe was being crushed - to get free, but he didn't let go. "You forget, Natalia," he spat, "I was the one who taught you."

However, he didn't seem particularly angry, nor surprised. He was looking at her as though she was a beautiful phenomenon. A single tear slipped down her cheek as she started to go limp, and he dropped her, whispering something in her ear as he did so.

She didn't fall. She strode towards Clint and he braced himself for whatever she was going to do, holding his breath...which was a bad idea. Her hand, now, closed around his throat. "What is this," he gasped, forcing a smile, "some sort of Pass the Squeeze?" The cut on his neck stung. He felt it open again, and a drop of blood trickled onto her fingers. He couldn't breathe at all now. Dark spots clouded his vision. "Tasha," he murmured.

* * *

(Four hours earlier)

He turned the air conditioning down a bit, waiting for Natasha to get back in. He didn't blame her for wanting to stretch her legs; SHIELD issue vans had an unfortunate habit of being terrifically uncomfortable, as though they weren't allowed to have soft seats in case they forgot about the prisoner in the back. He didn't drive all that much anyway, preferring to arrest someone and then hand them over to a different agent, which made the seat doubly painful to sit on.

She got back in quickly and slammed the door shut. The weak light made her face look ghostly pale. She was holding a knife.

"What's that for?" he asked cheerfully, but she didn't answer.

"The Red Room are here," she said quietly, bringing it up to his neck. "I need you to do as I say." She slid the blade into his neck, avoiding veins and his windpipe, and made a wide, shallow cut. "You're going to slump against the seat and play dead. When we're gone, you're going to call Stark on his private line and tell him he needs to get his ass up here right now." He opened his mouth to object but she shook her head. "Yelena's here, as well as a few guards. They'll probably check to see if I killed you. Now say my name, loudly."

"Natasha!" He felt blood start to run down his neck, and threw himself back against the seat, closing his eyes. He didn't like this at all, and he had no idea what was going on. She climbed out, shutting the door again behind her. There were voices.

A few minutes later, the door opened. He held his breath, but felt two fingers press into his neck.

Clint did his very best to look like the life was ebbing out of him. They grabbed him and dragged him out of the van, and, opening his eyes, he saw that there were two of them. He could take two men, couldn't he?

The first guy was easy enough, but the second threw him to the ground and sent a foot flying at his face. He grabbed the leg and _pulled_, as hard as he could, and the man tripped, sprawling next to him. Clint started punching repetitively, hard, steady blows to the face until, bruised and bloody, the man went still. He stood up and dialled Stark's number, a private line that was kept reserved for urgent SHIELD and Avengers calls.

Someone lunged at him from behind, and there was a sharp prick on the back of his already bleeding neck.

Clint spiralled down.

* * *

(Now)

Her hands were cold, he thought suddenly, as his eyes closed. He didn't particularly want to die, especially not by her hand. Was this what everyone else she had killed felt like? He thought of the agents she had taken down when they had stepped off the plane in Moscow. They were surprised.

They were betrayed.

He wondered if she knew that Agent Alexson was in hospital, in a coma, because she had hit him too hard in the wrong place when escaping the van, or that Agent Igor had almost lost his job. He wondered which Natasha that had been.

In the end, he deducted this:

The Red Room had created her to be a weapon and a tool, something that could be used to destroy. But she was stronger than they realised, and fought against their brainwashing. As if breaking out of a trance, she defected, but recently traces of the old brainwashing had been showing through without her realising it, hence the lack of memories.

Was she strong enough to do it a second time?

He felt his consciousness slipping away. _Come on, Natasha,_ he thought silently.

Her hands left his neck and he sucked in as much oxygen as he could. _It's nice to breathe,_ he thought.

Clint looked up. The man was beaming at him. "_Priyti_," he said to Natasha. She started to walk towards the door.

"You _bastard_!" he hissed, as he took her by the wrist and led her away, shutting the door behind him.

* * *

He fell asleep or passed out at some point, because he was awoken by a loud crash.

_Natasha?_

She had been gone for about an hour now, he thought. He hadn't heard anything, and couldn't quite work out if this was good or very bad. Perhaps it was neither; he didn't know how large the building was and she could be anywhere.

_Boom._ There it was again, just a few rooms away. The guards posted outside were shouting frantically, and he started to wish he had bothered to listen when Natasha tried to teach him Russian on their numerous plane journeys.

"I don't speak Russian," came a familiar voice, "sorry."

It wasn't Natasha.

The door flew against the opposite wall.

"Hello, Agent Barton," said Stark. "Did you miss me?"


	10. Shock

**A/N: You have NO IDEA how hard it was for me to write this. This is my third attempt now, and nothing happens, really, but I'm quite happy with it. Please be nice and review - what do you think think will happen next?**

(Natasha P.O.V.)

"Natasha. Come on. We have to run." A man, crouched in front of her. She didn't recognise him, though something told her she should. He was blond and muscled and handsome, and his large, powerful hands were fiddling with the straps around her wrists. She kept her eyes level with the doorframe, perfectly still. Icy cold. Emotionless. _Never, ever let anyone know they're getting through to you, _Ivan once told her. _You are Black Widow - make them feel unsettled. _That had never let her down, and she hoped that it wouldn't now.

He started to gently shake her shoulders, but she didn't move. She didn't even feel as though she could move. Her entire body was frozen in place, glued to the chair by some invisible force. He waved a hand in front of her eyes. She didn't blink. "C'mon, Nat. It's me. Steve." He sighed. "Let's get you out of here." She found his arms wrapped around her, and he hoisted her up, putting her limp arm around his own shoulders. "Think you can walk?" She said nothing, so he shrugged and grabbed her legs, pulling her upwards into a bridal-style carry. What? She didn't want to be lifted. But she found herself unable to struggle and so he continued to walk with her.

Her open, expressionless eyes took in the white ceiling, and she was overcome with a rush of memories. _Graduation. They were going to sterilise her. _Without meaning to, she tensed, and Steve glanced down at her in concern. "Did they hurt you?" he asked. Where did she know him from? There was a silver star on his dark blue stealth suit, the American star, and something that appeared to be a _shield_ on his back - which, as if on cue, he took and hurled in front of him. He was American, and didn't appear to know any Russian at all...

_Captain America._ That was who was holding her. Captain America. Her breath caught in her throat, the oxygen she was inhaling suddenly fiery and terrible. Did he know her? He knew her name.

One of them, anyway. She wasn't sure which was the real one.

He started speaking into his wrist; perhaps there was some kind of communication device there. "I have Nat," he barked. "Let's get out of here." There was some sort of crackling reply, and then he said, "Roger that."

Then he started to sprint.

* * *

Another man took hold of her when they were outside, and Captain America and the other - someone in a red suit of armour - started to talk about extraction. He angled her face so that she was looking directly into his eyes (though, to a certain extent, she was not _seeing_ very much at all). She didn't recognise him; he was not a famous face like the Captain.

He swore softly. "It's Clint. Clint." She stared. "Crap! What did they do to you in there? Are you hurt?" No, she thought, not on the outside, and then was shocked to have had such a thought. The Red Room had helped her- No, they hadn't. They hadn't helped her at all.

She spent some time like this, fighting a battle between the two halves of herself, until she vaguely registered that they were on a quinjet, rising upwards. She was lying on a stretcher, and couldn't quite bring herself to move off it. Natasha knew she was being lazy, but it was nice...

That man again. Clint? That was what he said. Clint. He was lifting her head onto his lap, a gesture that to her felt oddly intimate, as if they were best friends - or even more - and he was just looking out for her. She found that she was looking up at him, and although she couldn't hear him (her ears were full of quiet whisperings and _swoosh_es), she could tell that he was repeating the same words over and over again. What were they?

She watched the way his lips pursed and opened up at different points. She was not a master lip-reader, but she had done a training session on it before.

_A storm's coming._

It was oddly reassuring to her to find those words, and she discovered that when she did, she could hear again, which was pleasant.

"...happened to her?" the Captain was asking quietly.

The armoured man - _Tony Stark, Iron Man,_ her mind supplied - answered slowly. "She's in shock. I'm going to give her an adrenaline shot." He produced a needle. She wanted to shy away; was he going to give her more of the serum? It slid into her neck. She barely felt it.

Then she did, and it was _everywhere_, flying through her bones and veins and joints and skin, pain and energy; she wanted to jump up and _do_ something, but she couldn't - it was almost too painful to move. She realised that they were all kneeling beside her, holding her down, while her back arched and she drew in harsh, ragged breaths (half-sobs, even). One of them was yelling at her, hollering at the top of his voice, but she didn't understand.

What had she done wrong? Why did they need to punish her? Another needle...no! Please...

This time it went into her arm, and it made her heavy. She felt herself slipping - _No. Slipping is weak. Holding on is strong. Always hold on._

"Damn it! Why isn't it working?"

"I think they gave her something back in there. It's reacting with the adrenaline shot."

"Give her another."

"We can't overload her system. It could put her in a coma, or kill her."

"Look at her! She's in pain! We can't just _leave_ her like this, and watch!"

Her body continued to spasm and convulse. She found herself retching, and someone was stroking her hair out of her face. "It's OK, Nat," he whispered, and she wished she knew who he was. "It's going to be OK."

He continued until, finally, he stood up, the jet started to land, and the sedative took over.

* * *

(Clint P.O.V.)

She was _bad_. Fitfully, she slept as they came in to land, her eyes at last sliding shut. He couldn't help but wonder what they had done to her. Even as the drugs racked her system, she stared straight ahead, eyes emotionless.

He couldn't help but stare back down at her. Even now, she was beautiful, her face contorted, tears running down her cheeks.

He whispered words of comfort into her ear, but she didn't seem to listen. Steve had his hands down on her shoulders, keeping her relatively still, and Stark was frozen in place, probably scrolling through data in his helmet. When something beeped in the cockpit, he stood up (albeit reluctantly) and landed the quinjet on the rooftop of Stark Tower.

Tony was already lifting her up, none too gently, and flying her inside.

The other two followed.


	11. Only Human

**A/N: I'm back! This chapter, you will probably find, is not particularly interesting. But I kind of need it for the plotline, so...please read it, and reviews make me a happy little bunny rabbit. Oh, and do you like the new cover image? **

(Natasha P.O.V.)

It was a strange, not-quite-there existence; she drifted in and out of sleep, sometimes staring at the dull white ceiling, sometimes staring into space. Someone, it seemed, had decided that it would help her if someone was with her at all times, talking through their memories with her - and it did. She liked to lie there, listening, and sometimes snippets of their past conversations came back to her. Sometimes they didn't.

She knew that, if she wanted to, she could wake up out of her trance. The problem was that she _didn't_. Natasha was fairly certain that she should, sometime soon, but there seemed to be some sort of mental block on her mind, one that made her sure she could stay for a little longer. She had had numerous brain scans and even procedures for which she needed to be sedated, and she knew they were all worried about her, but...

Another needle slid into her shoulder, and it felt like no time at all passed when she regained consciousness. There was Clint again - the one person she didn't remember, but now...

She _did_.

She remembered _everything_.

Natasha opened her eyes. He was sat beside her bed, reading.

"Hey," she said.

* * *

Clint insisted that she take it easy for a while; she was not allowed to train or walk about too much, and on the first day he forced solid bed rest - except for when she stood up and went downstairs to eat. He had offered to bring her something up, but, as she put it, she wanted to see everyone and eating in bed just filled it with crumbs anyway.

Stark was delighted that his operation had worked. Steve was surprised (she had come up behind him very quietly and then asked him how his training was was going) and pleased, it seemed, that she had made a full recovery. Clint... she couldn't read him; not now. It was as though he had closed up completely from her - as though he didn't trust her any more.

She tried not to think about what she could remember now. All the Red Room's previous brainwashing was gone. She could remember them _hurting_ her, forcing her to comply. She could remember brutal training procedures, procedures where they deliberately tried to break her, and in doing so taught her how not to feel. She could remember her first kill, at _six_.

Six.

She slumped sideways against the wall, breathing heavily. Missions came more frequently after that, until she had one almost every month by the time she was fifteen.

Someone rounded the corner. "You OK, Nat?" She reached out blindly, her eyes shut to close in the tears. "Hey," they said quietly. "Hey." Her hand brushed against hard muscle. Steve. "Want to talk about it?"

She found herself nodding. Natasha was not one to weep, but sometimes everyone needed a shoulder to lean on, and the shoulder of Steve Rogers was firmer than most. He took her gently by the wrist and pulled her into the kitchen of their floor (Clint, Bruce, her and Steve shared a floor when they stayed, though currently Banner was in Dehli). He pulled out a chair, which she sat on obligingly, and another for himself.

"It's OK to hurt," he said steadily. "Nobody can do anything to you for that."

She said nothing.

"It's normal. You're one of the strongest people I know, Natasha, and you'll pull through this. But to get through, you can't just lock up everything inside."

Natasha smiled a bit. "Well, I'm not exactly going to throw a temper tantrum, am I?"

He tilted her chin upwards so that she was looking into his eyes, but there was nothing intimate or even slightly romantic about the gesture. "It's normal, Nat. _Normal_."

"Screw normal," she said defensively. "I'm an Avenger."

"You're _human_. You're not a super soldier, and you don't have a giant green rage monster inside you, and you're not Asgardian. Sure, on the outside you're Black Widow, but in the inside," - he pressed his palm against her stomach - "you're just the same. Human."

"Human," she repeated hollowly.

"It's only human to feel, Romanoff." He was quiet, and she moved forward and rested herself in his arms, which he wrapped around her.

She stayed there, reassured by his warmth and firmness and reality, until, bone-weary, she began to talk.

"I don't feel like a human," she whispered into his shoulder. "I feel like a monster."

"You're not-"

"I woke up and _every_ nightmare, _every_ bad dream I've _ever_ had, about me killing innocent people, about my time in the Red Room, is _true_. Everything. All the times I've woken up _screaming_, crying, wild, and the _only_ thing that's kept me from picking up a gun and ending it all is the fact that I told myself again and again that it _wasn't real_. And then, _what do you know,_ I wake up and there is _no escape_ from this _nightmare_ because it was _all_ true in the first place!" Her voice rose and rose until she was spitting the words out, almost telling. She lowered it. "I don't know if I can do this any more, Steve."

He stiffened, barely noticeably, but she felt it through his thin shirt. "You can, and you will."

"What've I done, Rogers." It wasn't a question. She buried her head in his chest and he stroked her back calmly.

"It's OK," he said. "You're OK."

She had not dared sleep for almost thirty-six hours and, exhausted, she found herself sinking away into uneasy darkness.

* * *

(Clint P.O.V.)

He saw her, shouting at Steve about her nightmares. He flinched automatically, but moved closer to the sleek white kitchen door. He was holding her in his arms, rocking her gently back and forth.

Clint's vision clouded slightly, and he felt a pang in his stomach as they conversed. It wasn't _jealousy_, exactly - but it was. Since waking up, she had almost completely avoided him. She hadn't confided in _him_ like that; she hadn't let him hold her. But Steve, _Steve_ who she had laughed at, _scorned_ even, Steve she talked to. Steve she let hold her, rock her to sleep.

He sucked in a breath. This was wrong. This was _bad_. Why the hell was he _jealous_? There was nothing between him and Nat - they were just friends. Partners, nothing more.

They had formed the unbreakable bond of partners.

Partners, nothing more.


	12. Fight Me

**A/N: OK, so here we have yet another pointless, angsty chapter. You will probably be very confused about where this one even came from, and what it means, but please bear with me for a little while after all, this fic will soon be drawing to a close, and I can make a start in the sequel! Yay! Please, please review!**

(Natasha P.O.V.)

It took her a while to sum up the courage to find Clint and talk to him. She had tried her very hardest to avoid him since she had woken up; she knew that it was hurting him, the one who had sat at her beside, holding her hand, bringing things back, and it hurt her too, but for some unspeakable reason she could hardly even look him in the eye. Whenever they passed, she kept her head down so that her hair covered her face and he could not see the pain in her eyes - and so she could not look into his.

She remembered the bond they had shared before that fateful mission, how he had once told her a joke by coughing in a certain way, how they were able to blink Morse code at each other, how they had all their own protocols and training routines and ways of doing things. How he had texted her an encoded message during debrief sthat she had to decode without Fury or Hill or Coulson noticing her, and think up a code of her own to send back.

How he had plunged into a burning building to save her, tied down; how she had stepped forwards and taken a knife wound to her abdomen for him.

She thought about how the Red Room had taken a pair of scissors and _snipped_ right through that bond, and how it had been broken beyond repair, and was so lost in thought that she didn't notice Clint until she walked right into him.

He looked at her for a moment, probably taking in her wide eyes, the surprise and horror written on her features, and clamped a hand down on her shoulder. "We," he said firmly, "need to talk."

* * *

(Clint P.O.V.)

He led her silently into a large closet that seemed to store light bulbs, which was odd because Stark's lights were all far too modern to have bulbs like that, but at that precise moment Clint was too upset to care. He sat down on the floor and she did the same, closing the door behind her.

Silence.

"What's up with you?" he asked finally. He had meant to sound angry and tough, but the words came out weak, lame. "Why are you avoiding me like this?"

She tensed up. "I- I thought..."

"What do you think, Nat? Because I've being trying all this while to save you, and you won't let yourself be saved. How do you think I'm feeling all through this? You're not the only person who's- who's-"

"Who's what, Clint?" Her voice was dangerously quiet and calm. "Who's facing their past - an evil, faceless organisation who brainwashed and tortured them-"

"They tortured you? What the hell, Nat. Why does this even matter? What the hell. This isn't about the Red Room. This is about _you and me_."

She didn't speak for a while. "I don't know what you want me to say." She seemed so helpless, as though _nobody_ cared about her, as though it was him doing all the avoiding, all the not speaking.

He swore. "I want you to tell me the truth!" he yelled, exploding. "I want you to stop lying, because you've got your memory back and you've got me _right here,_ your _best friend_, and I've done everything I can to save you! And then it all turns out fine, and you go to _Captain bloody America _before you go to me!"

She stood up, fists clenched. "Get up, then," she said. "Fight me."

"Are you kidding?! I can't even tell any more! What is _up_ with you?"

"Get _up_," she repeated through gritted teeth.

"What the hell, Natasha?"

She lashed out, catching him in the ribs. His hands flew to his side, and he looked up. He didn't want to fight her, like _hell_ did he want to fight her, but he was angry and hurt and so mad at her that he could hardly think, and she was lunging at him again-

He rolled to the side, leaping up. "I don't want to hurt you," he growled.

"Yes, you do."

Her fist darted forwards, hitting him in the nose, and hereof the blood start to trickle out. With and angry shout, he threw himself at her, pummelling her with his fists, but fast, furious, she blocked every single one of his punches, and he blocked all of hers. She gripped his wrists, pulling him back, but he lunged towards her. The sudden weight caught her off guard; she stumbled and they crashed through the door, rolling several times across the floor.

Clint heard a distant questioning call and the blood pounding in his ears. Adrenaline pumped through every ounce of his body, and his breathing was wild as he threw punch after punch at her.

Occasionally, he felt her fist or her foot or her elbow strike home, and he would fall back for a second, gasping, but he could see that it was the same with her. He knocked her down.

She stayed there for a moment, her eyes frenzied, crazed, even, looking up at him.

Then she leapt up and they started to fight again.

He wasn't even sure what they were fighting for.

Freedom, maybe. Closure.

* * *

(Natasha P.O.V.)

He landed a decent blow to her stomach and she staggered backwards, winded.

Strong arms wrapped around her middle, pinning her arms to her sides and lifting her into the air. She kicked and struggled, but Steve was strong. "Let _go_ of me," she spat, slamming her head into his chest, which did nothing but make her head hurt. She blinked a few times, dizzied all of a sudden. Clint was on his hands and knees.

"What the hell are you guys doing? You'll kill each other!"

"Get off me, Steve," she yelled. "Damn it! I can handle myself!"

"Not like that you can't." She realised what he was going to do a split second before he did it. "TONY!"

Clint stood up. His nose was bleeding profusely, he was holding his side from where she had hit him earlier, and he had a slight limp, but other than that he didn't look too bad.

"Thanks," he said, "for nothing. I hope you feel better now we've beaten each other up, 'cause I don't."

Stiffly, he turned and walked towards the elevator.

He got in.

It went down.

They stood there, frozen, him holding her back, until Tony came running and she watched through the floor-to-ceiling windows as a tiny speck walked out the front doors, onto the helipad, onto a quinjet, and flew away.


	13. Fury

**A/N: I know it's been forever, and I'm so sorry. I haven't really had much writing time this holiday and I've mainly focused on one of my AoS fics, _I'll Show You the Way_. I'm slightly lacking in the inspiration department here - I have the big finale all planned out, I'm just struggling with how to get there, and this chapter has been half written for somewhere around six weeks. If anything in here doesn't add up, that's probably why. Enjoy and review!**

(Clint P.O.V.)

_Crap._

That was Clint's first thought upon waking up on the floor of the quinjet. His second was _Natasha_, namely _did I harm her? _but also _what the hell was she thinking?_

His ribs ached and his nose felt swollen and sore. Pain shot through his twisted knee when he moved it, and he suspected he would walk with a limp for the next few days. He stumbled into the poky toilet cubicle of the jet, his head spinning so much that he felt as though he had a hangover. Glancing in the small mirror, he saw dried blood caked around his throbbing nose, bruising on his chest when he lifted his shirt - though he didn't think he had suffered any broken ribs.

He splashed water on his face until the blood was gone and he could think more clearly, and then moved out into the main interior of the plane. He headed towards the medical kit, in which he fumbled around for a while until he found a packet of aspirin.

Then he took them, sank back down to the metal floor, and fell asleep again.

* * *

(Natasha P.O.V.)

_Crap._

That was her immediate reaction when she woke up back in her own bed, the door opposite her shut and probably locked. Her second was, _Clint,_ namely_ Did I hurt him?_ but also _What the hell were we thinking?_

She stumbled out of the bed, feeling for all the world like she had a hangover - and a bad one. The door swung open (not locked, then) and she came face-to-face with Steve.

"What the hell, Romanoff?" he asked, fuming.

"Did you watch me?"

"What?"

"Did you watch me?" she said clearly. "While I was sleeping?"

He frowned. "Stark sedated you. It was medically induced."

"But you were." It wasn't a question.

"I didn't want you to do anything...rash," he sighed. "Besides, Fury's here. He said to bring you to him as soon as you woke up, by any means necessary."

She stiffened. She hadn't seen Fury since before the whole Red Room incident, and she was willing to bet that he didn't know nor care about the brainwashing. "What did you tell him?" He looked blank. "You told him I was here. Did you tell him anything else? About the brainwashing? The Red Room?"

He shook his head slowly. "Something you want to tell me?"

"Damn it, Steve! What did you tell him?"

Steve frowned, unsure of what to do. "I said you were back. And that you and Clint fought, and then he left."

She put her head in her hands, sinking down to the floor. "And what did he say to that?" she asked quietly, panic twisting through her gut.

"He-" Steve's brow furrowed in confusion - "he asked if you were secure. And then...then he said to bring you to him."

"Fast, and by any means possible," she whispered to the floor. "Steve, you have to get me out."

"What?"

"Fury's going to lock me up. This is our _one_ chance to take down the Red Room, and Fury doesn't trust me enough to let me help."

"Why doesn't he trust you?" Steve looked blank.

"Keep up, Rogers," she said tiredly, swinging her fist into the side of his head as hard as she could to knock him out.

It did nothing. He stumbled to the side slightly, but something must have prevented her from knocking him unconscious.

"Crap," she said. "Super soldier, right?"

Using as much strength as she could, she shoved him in the stomach to push him back, causing a temporary distraction.

Natasha broke into a sprint, running as fast as she could down the corridor.

She'd almost made it to the elevator before he grabbed her.

* * *

"Agent Romanoff," Fury said coldly. "Nice to see you again."

She stayed silent. Natasha wasn't one to grovel. Steve tightened his grip on her slightly. She couldn't escape now if she tried. "Can someone please tell me what's going on?" he asked tersely.

Neither answered, instead locking gazes. Both were too stubborn to look down first.

"Would you like to give me a reason why?" Fury half shouted. "Because I have been asking myself every day for over a month why one of my best agents would suddenly decide to turn rogue and kill every one of her colleagues and friends!"

"Well then," she exploded, "perhaps you aren't quite the spy you think you are, because maybe then you would have _noticed_ that I _wasn't myself_, that I had been _brainwashed_ in such a way that even _I_ wasn't aware of what the _hell_ was _happening_ to me, that _whenever_ I tried to kill someone I didn't even _know_ who they were - who _I_ was!"

"And Agent Barton? After Stark's cure, you just got up and decided to try and kill your partner? Barton is an invaluable asset to the whole of SHIELD and so, I thought, were you! The World Security Council wanted you locked up! Killed, even! But Barton brought you in, _Clint_ brought you in and said that you could help. And I looked into your eyes and saw a soldier. I damn well defended you in front of everyone, and this is how you -"

"Will someone tell me what the hell is going on?" At some point during this exchange, Steve had let go of Natasha, and now two pairs of livid eyes turned to face him.

"Get out, Rogers," Fury spat.

"Not until someone-"

"Damn it, Steve, get out!" she yelled.

He left, shutting the door behind him.

"Shit, Natasha. You are going to tell me exactly what happened, and everything you know about the Red Room and then, like it or not, we are going to take them down."

She half-fell to the floor in relief. "Thank God," she muttered. "I thought you'd never ask."

* * *

(Clint P.O.V.)

He was dreaming, but it wasn't a dream. It was memories, one after the other, in rapid succession, and they were beautiful memories.

_Her, dancing with such fluidity and dangerous, predatory grace that he, crouched in the gallery with an arrow poised to fly into her skull, couldn't help but wonder if she was simply blood, gathered together to form the shape of a beautiful, terrible human being._

_Him, lowering his bow while she stared down the shaft of his arrow, unafraid even in her last moments; fearless, strong._

_Her, sitting in the quinjet, talking to him in flawless English whenever he asked her a question but otherwise remaining silent as though she were not allowed to speak at all._

_Him, trying to understand the simple rules of the Russian she was teaching him._

_Her, standing as a silhouette on the opposite rooftop, hair flying._

_Him, watching her lips as they said, "I don't do depts. I don't want to do something just so someone can repay the favour."_

_Her, stepping in front of him so that the knife flying towards him embedded itself in her stomach._

_Him, leaping through a burning doorway and tearing through the smoke-filled hallways to find her, burning himself badly and almost dying, because she was tied down and her targets might have killed her._

_Her, holding his hand while he lay in a hospital bed, thanking him for what he'd done, even though she could have easily escaped on her own, unscathed._

His phone was ringing. _Natasha_, the screen read. He denied the call. A moment later, however, it started to ring again, this time claiming it to be Stark. It was only the fourth time (_Nick_ \- he didn't put in Fury in case his phone was compromised) it rang that he picked up.

"What?" he snapped.

"We've got a big attack on Romanoff's old organisation. I thought you might like to be there," Fury said.


	14. Last Chance

**A/N: Well, hello strangers! How's your year been? I'm not even kidding. _Year. _I'm so sorry.**

** On the bright side, I've just realised that we have two more chapters left after this one. It took me a year, but I got there. Thank you to everyone who's supported me this far, even if you've forgotten about this story completely. I don't blame you.**

** If anybody's out there, I'd love a review or two to let me know that you're still reading...**

_Clint POV_

"Your grand master plan is to stick me in a building and use me as bait?" Natasha arched an eyebrow.

"Frankly, Agent - if I should even be calling you that - you brought this upon yourself. After killing thirteen of our agents and seriously injuring three others, one of whom is your partner, you're lucky the council hasn't ordered your execution. Use this opportunity to prove yourself, because it's the only thing keeping you alive."

"Make that fourteen dead," Clint said quietly, putting his phone back in his pocket. "Alexson died this morning."

Fury closed his eyes and let out a long breath. "You understand, Ms. Romanoff, how bad this looks. Stark, despite his extensive research, is unable to provide enough evidence of your alleged brainwashing. Your recent catatonic state has, of course, helped matters considerably, but apart from the operation performed on your brain and the multiple reports of apparent split personality, a jury hardly has enough to reach a proper decision. Do you follow?"

She nodded once, eyes never leaving his.

"You will call the Red Room, claim that you were imprisoned within SHIELD but escaped."

"They'll know she's lying," Clint said, frowning.

"That's the point, Barton," Natasha said. "They'll know but they'll come to subdue me anyway, just with more people. They just won't realise that we'll have an army waiting for them."

"How do we know - "

"Because we have the entire place rigged to blow," Fury interrupted.

"I go in, they go in, you go in, we get out, they don't."

"Who's 'we'?"

"You, Steve and a task force thirty strong."

"They'll send that many?"

"They'll send four. If I'm right, those are the only four we need to kill."

"Four?"

"We'll cripple the entire organisation."

"And if you're wrong?"

"I die, Fury loses his job, and the Red Room destroy SHIELD and continue making people like me." She looked him square in the face and he could see every single bruise he'd given her yesterday.

"You're just going to throw your life away. On a whim. Don't think this means I'm going to forgive you."

"Not a whim, Clint."

What the hell was she doing? She was going to die out there. There was no way she could survive this.

"I don't think the world's ready for you to die just yet, Tasha. You've still got to save it a few more times."

"Oh, I think the world's more than ready for me to die, Clint. People have been trying to kill me since I was ten years old."

He thought back to last year, when he had woken to the sound of a gunshot. Running into his partner's bedroom, he had found her knelt over the body of a dead man holding a knife, searching his pockets for some form of identification. _Assassin, _she said calmly. _I don't even know how he managed to get in. _When he'd asked how she'd woken up, she said, _He was breathing._

_ Breathing._

It was, in fact, rather alarming her ability to stay alive. She was so ... tough. Never gave up, never caved in ...

"When do we leave?" he asked.

* * *

_Natasha POV_

She stayed quiet for the entire plane journey.

_There's nothing to say,_ she told herself, but even one of the greatest liars in the world couldn't lie to herself.

When they were a mile away from the warehouse, they landed. She changed out of her everyday clothes into SHIELD prison uniform, removed her shoes and then strapped four guns to various undetectable parts of her clothing. "You ready?" Steve asked, handing her a bugged phone.

"Yep." She flashed him a grin (one he didn't return) and then took off running.

It was a steep incline, and she realised that her fitness had dropped drastically in the past few weeks. She calculated that at this rate she would get there in about eight and a half minutes, which was longer than she had told the team she'd be. As soon as she started picking up the pace, however, she found herself struggling to breathe and had to slow to a gentle jog - the sort of pace she did in training while warming up for a ten mile run.

_Screw you, Natasha, _she thought furiously, frustrated and humiliated at her own failure to run even 1600 metres. _Screw you._

When she finally reached the rendezvous point, she could barely breathe and was so angry that she wasn't particularly trying. How the hell could she have lost so much fitness? How did that even happen?

Exhausted, she stumbled into the deserted building. The team before her had done a good job with the bombs; scanning the space, she couldn't see a single sign of them. If she stood in the centre of the room, they wouldn't be close enough to check any walls or crates.

The main problem was getting out. If she was too close to the Red Room operatives when the team burst in, she'd either be shot outright or used as a hostage to prevent a firefight. Presumably, she'd have to lead them out of the warehouse, pressing the signal button concealed in her sleeve as soon as she was in the doorway, so that she got out but the task force forced the Red Room leaders back in. A signal would sound, SHIELD would retreat, the bomb would go off, and the Red Room's two leaders and their successors would be blown into oblivion. Hopefully, after that, the organisation would start to drift apart. There would be Black Widows like Natasha who would run from the KGB given the chance, young girls who would probably follow them in search of a home. Of course, the KGB would fight to keep it running, but with so many Widows gone, and the people in charge, eventually it would have to be shut down.

There were too many flaws in the plan to count, but despite everything she'd been saying, Natasha did not plan on dying today.

* * *

_Clint POV_

"_Otets?_"

"Natalia?"

"That's our cue!" Steve shouted. "Move!"

There was a flurry of motion and the entire force started running up the hill. Clint and Steve hung back, listening to the conversation, though neither of them spoke Russian.

"You think she'll make it?" Steve asked him quietly.

"She's a tough cookie."

"That's not what I asked."

Clint spun round to look at him. "You really want to know?"

Steve was silent.

"_No_. No, I don't think she will _make it_. I think she's going to die and it'll be _our_ fault and she won't get a proper funeral because she doesn't really exist and everyone hates her anyway because she was brainwashed by some organisation that is hell bent on - I don't even know _what _they're hell bent on doing - and we've been partners for _years _ but of _course _she's going to die now, when I can't forgive her and she - she - "

He noted with some horror that he was about to start crying. Steve was staring at him like he'd just shouted it in another language.

"Shit," Clint said. "Did I just say that in French?"

"No, I got it."

Unable to think of anything to say, Clint turned and started running after the task force.


	15. Compartmentalise

**A/N: What's this? A next-day update? That can't have happened since chapter two, all those years ago...**

** Prepare for the penultimate chapter, folks. Review or perhaps I won't ever finish, and that would be even more heartbreaking than the ending of the story, which isn't actually very heartbreaking at all.**

** In this chapter, we watch Natasha grow even more lost, push Steve away, push Tony away, and push everyone else away too. Is there redemption for that?**

** (Also, I think I forgot to mention that Laura Barton does not actually exist in this universe. In case you were wondering.)**

** Hooray for random WH13 quotes you pick up! Don't you just love them?**

** Without further ado, here it is...**

* * *

_"He is _dead_. How can you just be 'business as usual'?"_

_ "Because if I don't, I will _lose it_."_

\- Warehouse 13 _(TV series)_

* * *

Debriefing. Psychological evaluation.

Normally she was pretty good at this stuff. Fury was always calling her somewhere to take a polygraph or lie detector test or something. He had yet to discover something that worked. (Once, she'd told him that her hair was blue. It had registered as a truth.)

She just hated the psych eval. She could fool the controllers easily, but it always made her so _uncomfortable_. Not the questions.

The fact that if she told the truth, she would go _down_.

The fact that she'd been broken so many times she was hanging onto sanity by a single thread.

"Nat?"

Steve. Damn it.

"What are you doing?"

Using a scarf as a swing seat hung out of her twenty-fourth floor window.

"I'm getting changed," she called. "Don't come in."

"I'm standing in the middle of your bedroom."

_Shit_. "Haven't you heard of knocking?"

"I did. You didn't answer - what are you _doing_?!"

"Thinking," she said vaguely.

He grabbed her arms and dragged her back into her room. "You'll get yourself killed!"

She just shook her head.

"You - are you - do you think you should have died the other day? Is that it? Were you going to jump?"

"God, no! I'm pissed, Steve! I'm angry at everything and everyone but most of all I'm _furious _at myself. I'm not killing myself! I'm - I'm - "

"Punishing yourself? For what?"

"For letting myself _feel_ something. Every assassin knows that emotions equal death. That breakdown I had? That was the _fourth_ time I cried since I was six years old and killed my first man. Four times, Steve. Since I was six years old! That's compartmentalisation. That's not feeling. When you don't feel anything, nobody gets hurt."

"Nobody except you," he murmured. "You went through trauma. You're scarred. Seven agents died. _Clint_ \- "

"Shut up, Steve! Shut the hell up! Why are you always so _good_?! _Look at me, I'm a super soldier with super morals and I always do the right thing for the right reason and it's OK to be human!_ Not all of us are heroes, Rogers!"

He stumbled away like she'd hit him. "Nat ... "

She stormed towards the door but it opened before she could reach it. Stark stepped in. "Everything OK? I heard shouting ... whoa." He grabbed her arm. "What's going o - "

She slammed her knee into his crotch. He doubled over, gasping. "Get the hell away from me," she hissed.

_Compartmentalise._

_ Push everything away._

_ Don't let emotion get the better of you._

_ Be strong, Natalia._

* * *

**CLASSIFIED: LEVEL 8**

**MISSION DEBRIEFING AND PSYCHOLOGICAL EVALUATION **

**SUBJECT: ROMANOFF, NATASHA A. (SUB)**

**CONTROLLER: STEWART, GEOFFREY N. (CTR)**

**3RD SEPT, 2013**

_**[start recording]**_

**CTR: **This conversation is now being recorded. Can you describe what happened after you exited the quinjet?

**SUB: **I ran to the warehouse.

**CTR: **You took longer to make your phone call than you told your team you would. Why is this?

**SUB: **_Bozhe moy, ya nenavizhu eti veshchi._

**CTR: **Please repeat that in English for the sake of the recording.

**SUB: **I said, "My God, I hate these things."

**CTR: **Ms. Romanoff, please answer the question. Why did you take longer than you said you would?

**SUB: **I've been in a prison van and then almost comatose for a while. I lost weight and then I gained some weight but I haven't exercised in a while. I took longer because I'm unfit. I thought I was faster than I currently am.

**CTR:** Did this make you frustrated? You haven't been able to exercise, are you doing so now to make up for it?

**SUB:** Yes.

**CTR:** Are you doing more than the recommended amount?

**SUB:** I don't have a recommended amount. I've just been getting my fitness and fighting ability back up to where it should be.

**CTR:** Are you doing more exercise than you normally would, enough to make you unnaturally tired? Do you feel as though you are much weaker than before?

**SUB:**

**CTR**: Please answer the question.

**SUB: **I'm tired because I'm unfit. Normally I wouldn't be this tired.

**CTR: **But you are doing more than you were before this ... incident.

**SUB: **Yes.

**CTR: **What did you do once you got into the warehouse?

**SUB: **I looked around. Checked no bombs were visible. Looked for potential exits. Then I called the Red Room.

**CTR: **Was this because you didn't trust the work of other SHIELD agents?

**SUB:** It was because these people trained me, and I know how they see things. If anyone at SHIELD can think like they can, it's me.

**CTR: **But you didn't trust the other SHIELD agents.

**SUB: **Can I just tell you what happened and go?

**CTR: **You know that isn't how these things work, Ms. Romanoff.

**SUB: **OK, then picture this.

You've been attacked by the organisation which brought you up. You've been brainwashed so much that you can no longer control either part of yourself, so much so that you basically have multiple personality disorder. This in turn puts you into a sort of coma, which you have to have an operation to wake up from. Then you have to call these people and pretend you're on their side. They pretend to believe you. They know that you're lying and you know that they are.

**CTR: **Do you resent SHIELD for p -

**SUB: **They come. A TAC team comes. They enter the warehouse while the TAC team waits at designated points short distances from the warehouse. You can't shake the feeling that more than just four people are going to die today but by now it's too late to do anything so you just wait. Please stop trying to talk.

Your targets arrive. You do everything right but they still pull out their guns, all four of them. You press the signal button for the team to move in and duck behind a crate.

**CTR: **One with explosives in?

**SUB: **Yes. If they fire, you die and the explosion might not even kill them, it would just alert them to the trap. Are you picturing it?

**CTR: **Yes.

**SUB:** Right. So you start running madly to try and stall for time. The team's right outside. You're firing at them and they're firing at you but they aren't aiming to kill so by some miracle you aren't hit.

And suddenly the door swings open and Captain fu(_bleep_) America charges in with a machine gun, so you sprint out blindly. Someone's shouting that the bomb's set for thirty seconds but then Cap runs out of f(_bleep_) ammo and the targets are firing back. The team's firing, all of them, and six of them are going right into the building to block the doorway and suddenly your partner's next to you even though he hates you, and someone shouts, "Ten seconds! Get clear!"

He bumps you, trying to get you to run, so you do, and he's right behind you only when you turn around it's not him, it's someone else and you see him; he's just stood there, and suddenly you notice all the blood on his chest and -

**CTR: **Breathe, Ms. Romanoff.

**SUB: **I don't think it's those split second decisions that define you at all. In those seconds everything's blurry and you're not thinking straight and after you don't even remember making it.

**CTR: **Isn't that why it's supposed to define you?

**SUB: **Do you ever stop psychobabbling?

**CTR: **We're not here to discuss me, Ms. Romanoff. Please continue.

**SUB: **Huh. And people tell me I deflect questions.

So with five seconds to go you start sprinting towards him and Steve's screaming at you to get back but you can't stop and by then he's starting to fall and you just manage to catch him. You start dragging him away - he can only half walk - but it's too late and you hear an explosion and you're trying to protect your partner by getting on top of him so nothing hits him but somehow he falls on top of you, your head hits the ground and you go kind of weak and dizzy and can't move because he's on top of you -

**CTR: **How did this make you feel?

**SUB:** For (_bleep_)k's sake, why is everything a test?!

**CTR:** Ms. Romanoff, please don't -

_**[end recording]**_

_**[this recording has been censored]**_

_ Subject showed high levels of stress and pressure, as well as clear signs of grief over the several agents who lost their lives in the explosion._

_ Subject grew more frustrated towards the end of the interview and evidently felt uncomfortable being recorded. Although the debriefing and psych. eval. was not finished, approximately two months' psychological and medical leave is recommended, as well as counselling, though the subject may not agree to this._

_ Displays of violence were also shown. Subject should be approached with caution and monitored closely during period of leave._


	16. We Come Running

**A/N: Wow. I did it. It's only been about a year and a half.**

** I'd like to thank all you lovely reviewers, and also request that if you have the time I'd really appreciate a review for the story as whole, even if it's just a couple of words. **

**There will be a sequel, but I'm trying to blitz the stories I'm halfway through right now so I can work through each story at a time, which means it'll probably be a while before I get it up. When I post it, it will be called _Why I Hate This_. There will be two more stories after that as well, but I won't get too far ahead of myself.**

** Without further ado, please enjoy the last chapter of _When I Kill You_. Listen to inspirational music if you have any.**

** Thanks,**

** LadyMorganaPendragon x**

* * *

_(Clint P.O.V.)_

A hand in his.

A dull ache in his chest.

Heavy.

He forced his eyes open.

Too bright. He closed them.

"Clint?"

Blink. Blink.

"Tasha?"

His voice was hoarse and rasping.

Water.

A straw brushed his lips and he drank greedily.

"Wow."

"Yeah."

"How long was I out?" he croaked.

"Three days. You woke up yesterday and drifted in and out a bit."

"Say anything weird?"

"I seem to recall a _I can taste it all but I've lost my sense of smell. _Also you swore a lot. And said my name."

He huffed a laugh but it hurt. A lot. He shut his eyes with a groan. "How long am I here?"

"Three weeks. Eleven rest after that, with physio and gradually increased exercise, moving around. They say you can start training in five months."

"Kill me now," he muttered.

"You should be dead, Barton."

Not could.

_Should_.

"You bottomed out twice."

"It happens."

"It shouldn't happen."

"It's happened to you."

She was quiet for a while.

"Want to run away with me tomorrow?"

"A week tomorrow," she said.

"We have IVs and painkillers."

"You so much as sit up, you rupture your internal stitches and bleed out before they even get you to the operating table ... What are you doing?"

"Checking my fingers and arms aren't damaged."

He was squeezing her hand and then releasing it, pressing with each of his fingers. He hadn't even noticed it was still there.

"Clin - ow! Stop that!" She wrenched her hand from his and slapped him lightly.

He grinned at her.

"Go back to sleep, you demon," she laughed, standing up.

"Oh, don't leave me!" He made the saddest face he could.

"I promised Lisa I'd tell her when you woke up."

"Who?"

Natasha rolled her eyes. "The nurse who you keep giving false cell phone numbers. I told her you had to keep changing phones."

He made a face.

"Shut up. She's saved your life several times. The least you could do is get her coffee."

"She's allergic. I know because she tells me six times a day every time I'm here."

"Be nice."

"I'm always nice."

* * *

Tony and Pepper visited, as did Steve. He noticed that Natasha vanished for long periods of time whenever they came. Maria Hill stopped by to organise his absence, pay, and medical bills, which SHIELD would pay for.

He received a message from Bruce, numerous friends and even one from Fury (_Watch yourself, Barton._).

Lisa the nurse did not back off until she inadvertently walked in on him touching the fading scar on Nat's forehead and laughing about it, which she apparently read as a loving caress and, embarrassed and hurt beyond consolation, requested an immediate transfer. The new nurse was in her fifties and had a zero-tolerance policy for Clint. Within a week he was missing Lisa, anonymous heart-filled _Get Well Soon_ cards and all. At least, he complained to Natasha later, Lisa actually appreciated him.

"Why aren't you working, Nat?" he'd asked her once.

"Trauma leave," she'd said shortly.

When a week had passed, she just grinned at him and told him they'd leave next week. This happened twice more until, finally, he made her promise.

* * *

_(Natasha P.O.V.)_

It was a warm, sunny day, and she was grateful, because they'd tried doing this in the rain before and she had ended handcuffed her hospital bed with cuffs that shocked her if she tried to break out of them and Clint had ended up on a two-week surveillance mission in Amsterdam with nothing to do except stare at a man from a rooftop.

The running away had started four years ago when Clint, with a leg broken in two places, announced to Natasha, with a concussion and knife wound to her arm, that hospitals were boring and unnecessary. She didn't remember much of it because of the concussion, but somehow they got on a plane and flew to Cairo, Egypt, where Natasha had one of her more comfortable safe houses. They'd always managed to cut their leave and rest periods short before, but this time they just ran and left the hospital staff to wonder where the hell they'd gone. Eventually SHIELD tracked them down when Clint turned his phone on to check for messages, but by then they only had a week until they were due back at work anyway, so there wasn't much point in going back to the hospital.

Things had escalated from there onwards, and eventually it turned into a kind of mad game whereby guards were posted outside their door, Fury threatened them with suspension, Hill tried to work out where they would go next and they thought up thoroughly insane ways to escape the hospital. Then it turned into a generally unsuccessful manhunt while Clint and Natasha had the time of their lives on holiday somewhere.

"I got your bag," she said quietly, clambering in through the window. After one escape last year, Fury had placed guards outside their window, too, despite the fact that they were twelve floors up. She'd gone into the ward next door and climbed across, much to the horror of the old women in there.

"Cool," he said. "Nice hair." She had died it to stop the guard outside Clint's door from noticing her and wondering why she was going into the wrong room. "How are we getting out?"

"I have a friend. Two friends, actually."

There was the sound of chattering outside, and then a shriek and a thump. Natasha opened the door far enough for Clint to see a girl on the floor, and the guard hovering over her uncertainly. A young man ran up, shouting in what she guessed was Polish. "Quick!" he said to the guard, with a thick accent. "We must get her back to her bed. Help me!"

Looking bemused, the guard helped him lift her up and they started off down towards the elevator. Natasha ran back into the ward next door and grabbed the wheelchair she had left in there.

"Well, at least you're still alive," said one woman sternly. "You should be more careful."

"Will do," she said, nodding her now blonde head.

He was sat up in his bed, trying to stand. "What? I don't need a wheelchair."

She arched an eyebrow as he tried to stand up but fell back. Reluctantly he sat in it. She scraped the medicine on the table into his bag, hung it on the back of the chair, and started pushing him out.

* * *

_(Clint P.O.V.)_

"You sure you don't want more painkillers? Not even Tylenol?"

He wasn't sure. "Yeah. I'm sure."

She helped him into the car. "They'll have noticed we're gone by now."

"Incidentally," he said, "where are we going?"

"I was thinking we should go on a five star cruise."

"You have a safehouse on a _boat_?"

"I have a friend."

"You have a lot of friends."

"Besides, I don't think you should be on a plane in your condition. In fact, you _shouldn't_ be on a plane in your condition. So let's go get a lovely cabin and a place with a pool and gym for your therapy where nobody will be able to track us because we'll stay inside and always be moving."

"That actually sounds pretty good," he admitted.

"Plus, they have TV and WiFi. We can watch a shit ton of _Criminal Minds_."

He laughed. "Why are you so obsessed with that show when it's your life anyway?"

"I have my reasons. Also it gives me some great tips."

"Are you saying you're a serial killer?"

She winked.

"That's creepy."

She winked with the other eye.

"Also creepy."

She blinked at him.

"Was that an attempt to wink with both eyes at once? Because that's kinda stupid."

She drove on, looking at the road for a while.

"You know Fury isn't going to be quite so forgiving this time."

"He's fine."

"He's pissed at both of us already."

"Are you worried?"

"Not really," she said. "But we went directly against orders, it's against protocol ... I can't face another two months of pushing paper."

They arrived at the port two minutes later. "That was fast," he said, looking at his watch in surprise.

"Come on. The boat leaves in an hour."

She helped him back into the wheelchair and started talking to her friend on the phone. Seconds later, a crew member popped up and told them to follow him.

He took them through a back entrance ramp onto the ship and led them through a maze of narrow hallways until they reached a wooden door. Clint could feel his eyelids drooping.

"Thanks," Natasha said, flashing the poor kid a dazzling smile. He turned scarlet and scurried away. "We really shouldn't be doing this." She sounded cheerful as she fitted her key into the lock.

"To hell with it," he said tiredly.

"Fury's going to kill us."

"To hell with it," he repeated. "We're Avengers."

She wheeled him into the cabin.


End file.
